Roger Goodell says controversial Monday Night Football TD didn’t speed up negotiations

Today when the new deal was formally announced, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that the controversial touchdown scored by the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night did not speed up the negotiations.  Now personally I find this very hard to believe, since a deal was done merely two days after the incident.

Yet, these are the types of things that a commissioner has to say.  As much as he would probably like to, he cannot say that if that call hadn’t happened the real referees would still be locked out.  At least the NFL had negotiations going on with the referees for the past two weeks, which makes his statement look more legitimate.  The new eight-year agreement that was negotiated is the longest deal ever between the NFL and their officials, and the real referees will be on the field for tonight’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns.  The question is, how long will it take for fans to start complaining about bad calls and how poorly the referees are doing?

H/T: NFL.com