Sports has had many blown calls in history: Jeff Maier, Hull in the crease, the 1972 Olympic Basketball mess (I’m still reasonably sure that Doug Collins is forming a Ocean’s Eleven-style team to go steal the gold medals back from the Russians), and, of course, the epic tale of Joyce and Galarraga. But, with the possible exception of the ’72 games, none have been as surreal as what happened last night. Given how Twitter was busy comparing the NFL’s current replacement ref-a-palooza to the WWE, I decided to do some research on pro wrestling to find a inspiration for the name for this incident (thanks internet!). I found my inspiration in something called the Montreal Screwjob, where Vince McMahon intervened in one of his fake wrestling spectacles to ensure that Bret Hart, who had announced he was about to leave for another wrestling company, would not “win” a title at McMahon’s company.

Now, admittedly, there was no vast fake-wrestling conspiracy to take out the Packers last night. Instead, it was just utter incompetence on the part of the replacements, the NFL owners, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. But, c’mon, Seattle Screwjob rolls off the tongue well.

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So many things were wrong with the play to end last night’s game between the Seahawks and Packers: the missed offensive pass interference, the “simultaneous catch” that was in no ways simultaneous (Jennings clearly had it first, if Golden Tate ever had it at all, which I don’t think he did) and the various mess-ups in procedure and basic knowledge of the rules. Perhaps the regular referees, the ones currently locked out, would have also made one of these mistakes… but they wouldn’t have made all of them. Perhaps they wouldn’t have called the pass interference (deciding to swallow the whistle), but they probably wouldn’t have then messed up everything after that. And even if they had messed up the catch and whether it was a touchdown or interception, at least they would have then gone into a conference to figure out why one of the refs had given a different signal than the other, as opposed to just running to the replay booth.

But the replacement referees- made up of retired or fired refs from the lower college ranks, the Arena leagues, and in some cases even the Lingerie League, they didn’t get anything right. Which isn’t surprising: they don’t have the training or experience to be NFL officials. Something like this was bound to happen eventually, but it didn’t just happen, it happened on a night where the game in question was the only NFL game on, and at a time where primetime television was done, most baseball games were done, and, heck, even the local news was done. There literally was nothing else on, thus allowing the fiasco to be seen by everyone in America with a television set.

And so, what now? Well, in a perfect world, the NFL would declare the lockout immediately over, and it would make the unprecedented (for the NFL) declaration that, should the game end up costing the Packers a playoff spot, that they will receive some sort of compensation (such as draft picks). But, of course, neither of these will happen. The NFL has been so teflon for so long that the league’s flagship owners (Jerry Jones, for example) have taken to their ivory towers, not caring about any of the consequences that may come from their actions, knowing full well that the American people, like lemmings, will continue to flock to the TV sets, just as they have as the NFL has become increasingly violent (to the detriment of players’ health), increasingly abandoned it’s blue-collar roots, and seen it’s claims of being the most parity-filled league in sports ever more false (if, say, the Yankees and Cardinals, were as successful as the Patriots and Steelers have been this century, people would be screaming at the top of their lungs). So, even if commissioner Goodell tries to make peace with the NFLRA, it’s entirely possible that the owners will tell him to shut up and let them make their money until Ed Hochuli and company give in and give up their pensions.

And, what’s really sad is that they probably will get away with it.

Damn them.