The NFL likes to call these men "replacement officials," just as during the 1987 players strike they called the phonies they stuffed into team uniforms "replacement players." These men "replaced" no one; the players and the officials are still NFL employees as they negotiate a new contract, even while the work stoppage goes on, and when they return, the so-called "replacements" will be gone. Their only purpose, both in 1987 and now, is to undermine a union's bargaining position. So let's call them not by the soft, vague euphemism which the NFL chooses but for what they are: scabs. If this lockout serves no other purpose, it at least educates fans on some basic tenets of collective bargaining.

In this case, there are two main sticking points to the differences between the refs and management. The first is the NFL wants to improve the quality of officiating by adding what amounts to a taxi squad of three additional officiating crews. The NFLRA doesn't'like this idea because it would mean ceding the right to the Commissioner's office to suspend officials over bad performance—and it would be the NFL that would determine a good or bad performance. We're into a gray area here, one that is much more complicated than it seems, but one that you think could be resolved by some kind of compromise which also gives officials a say in evaluating performance of its own people.

But I don't think that's the crux of this dispute. I think the second and far larger problem is money. Since 2008, the league has put $5.3 million per year into the referees' pension plan. In the interest of cutting costs, the NFL wants to stop guaranteeing how much each ref would get in retirement and in its place institute a 401(K)-type plan. This, the commissioner's office estimates, would save the NFL about $3.3 million a year. Since the NFL grossed $9 billion in revenues last season, you might think that this is case of extending a bitter work stoppage over a relatively paltry sum, and you'd be right. To the refs, the dispute is about money; to the NFL it's about power. And the league does not, after losing badly to the Players Association just last year, relish the idea of losing another union dispute.

The result is the farce we now see taking place in every NFL game, not just the Green Bay-Seattle travesty. Monday night's game merely highlighted the issue because it was the last game of the week and the wrong call occurred on the last play of the game. Because of the marvelous techniques Sabol and NFL Films gave professional football, the fans can now see—over and over, in close-ups and from every angle—just how bad scab officials are and how they can disrupt not only a game and but the entire sport.

And if you think that fans aren't disgusted with the kind of officiating the NFL has brought about, consider this little gem out of Las Vegas earlier today: An estimated $300 million changed hands on that staggeringly inept call which the NFL approved in an official statement today. (The Packers were favored to win by 3 points; an interception would have given them a 12-7 victory instead of a 14-12 loss.)