The Chaz Rankings: Week 14

I'm sick and tired of hearing about how NFL officials have it so tough. Every time a ref screws up and changes the outcome of a game, defenders crawl out of the woodwork and mention how the game is so fast and how amazing it is that the officials make as many good calls as they do. "Being a ref is so difficult," they say. "Cut them a break."
To these people, I say: Working in a coalmine is difficult. Teaching kindergarten is difficult. Being a drug mule is difficult. Getting paid $125,000 to arbitrarily decide when to throw a flag for holding is not difficult.
NFL officials make great money to work 51 hours per year yet only get about 70% of their calls correct. (Sure, the NFL boasts about an accuracy of 97%, but those numbers are about as reliable as Kim Jong-Il's golf score.) There is no excuse for this.
Granted, it's only natural that refs will make some bad calls; they're human, after all. But this season has seen such poor officiating, some of which has altered the outcome of crucial games, that the simple "human error" argument is no longer valid. Humans err; ref's f*** up all the time.
In last night's game, Ron White's crew, one of the best in the NFL, missed five easy calls, two of which were overturned via the inane replay system (I won't even get started on that). Among the missed calls: Michael Vick clearly breaking the plane of the endzone on a run, a ruled fumble despite the player clearly being down and a reception where the receiver had not one, but two feet out of bounds. It was an atrocious display of officiating. Yet later this week, NFL head of officiating Mike Pereira will likely defend this crew and all others on the NFL Network.
Yes, he's stuck in a Catch-22: If he acknowledges that his officials often miss calls, the validity of all NFL games comes into question. But if he publicly supports them, no matter what the circumstance (ie, the Tampa/Washington and New York/Seattle games), Pereira comes off as a zebra shill and looks like that crazy Iraqi information guy from a few years back.
In addition to making terrible calls, officials have been misidentifying players, throwing make-up flags (yesterday the Falcons were twice flagged for roughing the passer. On the subsequent plays, the refs called holding on the Saints) and ruining any sort of flow a game might have by showering the field in an orgy of flags. The 4th quarter of last night's game began at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time; almost 2:50 after it started. Michael Vick and Aaron Brooks' incompletion carnival didn't help, but neither did Ron White and his crew.
There's only one way to improve NFL officiating: Get rid of instant replay in its current form. But that's a topic for another day.
The Chaz Rankings see a lot of movement this week. Indy, of course, is still #1, and will stay there even when they lose to San Diego or Seattle. Despite not being at all sold on those very Seahawks, they still belong up at #2 after an impressive run. Denver moves back into the top 3 despite struggling with the lowly Ravens and Cincy finally cracks the top 5 despite all my better judgment.
The Bengals are a weird team. I like Carson Palmer. I like Marvin Lewis. I love Chad Johnson. But I really don't like the Bengals all that much. I guess this is like when I was collectively a huge fan of all the members of N'Sync, but preferred the Backstreet Boys. Or something like that.
Chicago probably will take a big hit in the ESPN.com rankings, but there are worse things than losing on the road in the snow at Pittsburgh against a team with a tuned-up Bus. And dropping a pivotal game at home to Miami is one of those worse things, which is why the Chargers take the most precipitous drop in the brief history of The Chaz Rankings.
As you can tell, I'm still not sold on the Giants, and am reluctant to give any teams from the NFC South too much love. Look at those team's NFC records: They're all just pretty good. Just because they each beat up on the pathetic AFC East (the record of the top three South teams against the AFC is a combined 8-3. The top three in the NFC East, a division matched-up with the stacked AFC West, are 3-7 in interconference games) doesn't mean they're better than the Giants, Cowboys and Redskins.
Minnesota still hasn't knocked off a good team this season; and while I called their run to the playoffs back when they moved to 3-5, it will take a win over Pittsburgh for them to jump up in the rankings. (And they'll be in the top 5 if they do that, by the way.)
A plethora of upsets shook-up the bottom of the rankings this week, but Houston still remains in the cellar, much to the chagrin of Reggie Bush who faces the prospect of running behind one of the worst offensive lines in history next season. If they keep this up, Reggie Bush will have a chance to show Eli Manning how a real man is supposed to be drafted. Then afterwards he can maybe show Eli how not to throw three interceptions in the 4th quarter and overtime of his team's biggest game of the season.

1) Indianapolis Colts (13-0, #1)
2) Seattle Seahawks (11-2, #3)
3) Denver Broncos (10-3, #6)
4) Cincinnati Bengals (9-4, #7)
5) Pittsburgh Steelers (8-5, #13)
6) Chicago Bears (9-4, #4)
7) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (9-4, #11)
8) Carolina Panthers (9-4, #5)
9) Jacksonville Jaguars (9-4, #8)
10) Kansas City Chiefs (8-5, #9)
11) New York Giants (9-4, #10)
12) Dallas Cowboys (8-5, #12)
13) San Diego Chargers (8-5, #2)
14) New England Patriots (8-5, #15)
15) Washington Redskins (7-6, #14)
16) Minnesota Vikings (8-5, #17)
17) Atlanta Falcons (8-5, #16)
18) Miami Dolphins (6-7, #18)
19) Philadelphia Eagles (5-8, #19)
20) Arizona Cardinals (4-9, #21)
21) St. Louis Rams (5-8, #20)
22) Cleveland Browns (4-9, #26)
23) Baltimore Ravens (4-9, #25)
24) Tennessee Titans (4-9, #28)
25) Buffalo Bills (4-9, #22)
26) Oakland Raiders (4-9, #23)
27) New York Jets (3-10, #30)
28) Green Bay Packers (3-10, #29)
29) Detroit Lions (4-9, #24)
30) New Orleans Saints (3-10, #27)
31) San Francisco 49ers (2-11, #31)
32) Houston Texans (1-12, #32)