Hooray! With Real Refs Working NFL Games, Everything Is Perfect...Right?

Well, the NFL has ended its lockout of the league referees. With the NFL and the NFL Referees Association coming to terms to a new labor deal, the real guys get to go back to work. In fact, one crew gets to jump on a plane and head to Baltimore for the Thursday night game between the Ravens and Browns. Clearly, they are already in "game shape."

This will solve everyone's problems about everything, right?

Oh, how short-sighted we are.

There have been missed calls for years, even game-changing missed calls.

A missed call not too long ago in the past benefited the Arizona Cardinals.

Remember that amazing overtime playoff win when Karlos Dansby intercepted an Aaron Rodgers pass after he was hit by Michael Adams? That play should have been nullified. Adams clearly hit Rodgers in the helmet and grabbed his facemask. No one threw a flag and the Cards won.

There are many Cardinals fans that to this day do not believe that Santonio Holmes got both feet down in the corner of the end zone on the catch that took a Super Bowl Championship away from Arizona. Had the refs on the field made a ruling of incomplete, the video evidence would not have been sufficient to overturn it.

Would the real refs have given the Seattle Seahawks four timeouts or called that play on Monday night a touchdown? Probably not, but they likely would have messed up in other calls, perhaps that would have had the same impact.

We have to remember that fans have been swearing at refs as long as the refs have been wearing stripes.

In many ways, fans are acting the way Cardinals fans acted when Levi Brown went down for the season with his triceps injury. For five years, fans have been calling him a bum and saying he is terrible and shouldn't be the team's left tackle. However, all of a sudden when he goes down and it is D'Anthony Batiste (who really has done a pretty solid job overall) who takes over, they began to lament the loss of Brown because he was clearly better (even with the flaws).

My guess is that this week fans will be happy with the refs. But give it a week. We will already have the jeering and complaining about missed calls.

But since they aren't the replacement guys, I guess it doesn't matter.

So enjoy it for a little bit, football fans. You'll forget in no time and everything will be as it was before the lockout mess.