Click photo to enlarge  I don't expect the NFL owners to give an
inch to their locked out referees. Still. Stubbornly.   And if
they can get through the next few days, they'll have won again
and they'll have to keep winning like this over the long-term.
Which they appear quite ready to do, damn all outside criticism.
Because they're "The Shield" and everybody else isn't.  That's
the way they'll frame this to themselves; that's how
billionaires/sports-despots do this in the face of public
outrage and common sense.  They don't budge. Because not budging
shows (to themselves) that they're bigger than everything else.
If ever there was a time for Roger Goodell and his 32 bosses to
start back-tracking in negotiations, of course it would be now,
in the hours after last night's epic replacement referee
meltdown on Monday Night Football.  You never like the phrase
"integrity of the game" to be entirely and critically applicable
to officiating, but it is now. The real referees don't get every
call correct, but they