Why the NFL Must Do Whatever It Takes to Finally End Referee Strike

The officiating in Monday night's game between the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons is evidence enough that we need our old friends back.

The fact that I'm calling the locked-out referees "our old friends" is even more evidence that the replacement officials were beyond questionable throughout Week 2 of the 2012-2013 NFL season. As Bleacher Report's own Jesse Reed highlighted here, there were some boneheaded calls by the officials in Week 2. We've complained about officials before, but the replacement refs are simply out of their league...literally.

The same argument prevails as we approach Week 3. Coughing up a bit more money to the officials is worth it. You can't have referees staring wide-eyed at a star like Steven Jackson when he waits for what seems like hours for a touchdown to be called. You also can't have them calling a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct when he spikes the football in frustration.

This is a professional sports league—not high school, not junior college, not college football. A professional sports league needs to have professionals manning the sidelines. It's common sense.

The worst part of all of this is that the NFL has the means to pay these officials. But it's the same, old, tiring story: the billionaires don't want to cough up even a sliver of their piece of the pie for the better of the game—a game that has been mighty pleasant to them, I might add.

The NFL got away with it to an extent after Week 1. The replacements certainly weren't perfect, but they weren't disastrous, either.

That changed in Week 2, and now everybody is up in arms, including the players, who care not only about the game, but their health.

Football is a brutal game, a game that absolutely needs professionals to keep it under control. The replacement officials simply cannot keep it under control; that much was evident in Week 2.