Real News From The Blaze' Takes on NFL Referee Labor Dispute

Water-cooler talk across America Tuesday morning was dominated by the controversial ending of the Seattle Seahawks-Green Bay Packers game Monday night. The game was decided on the last play by a controversial endzone ruling made by replacement referees who have stood in through preseason and the first three weeks of the regular season as the professional officials and the NFL have not been able to come to an agreement in a labor dispute. The botched call caps off three weeks of incompetence by replacement refs, that have left fans as the real losers.

In many ways, the current referee lockout has been compared to the Chicago Teachers Union strike. The average NFL ref already makes $149,000 a year and the issue of pay is actually a small portion of the dispute. A larger part of the dispute is accountability. The NFL wants to increase the number of officials, creating a bench of trained refs who could be called upon to replace refs that are blowing calls. For NFL refs who are paid on a per-game basis, this could really cut into their salary if they're judged to be performing poorly.

On "Real News From The Blaze" Tuesday the panel discussed the blown call, the nature of the dispute between refs and the league, and how this strike mirrors the broader trend of organized labor disputes in recent years: