God, I’m old.

Talks between the NFL and the NFLRA broke off Saturday without anything encouraging coming from the talks.

I have seen the video clip of Roger Goodell’s doublespeak and generalities when “answering” questions about player safety and the replacement officials. He was clearly uncomfortable talking with Albert Breer of NFL.com. The clip is in the story here.

The upshot of all this is that the NFLRA and the NFL are arguing over making the officials full-time. The NFLRA says yes; the NFL says no.

And Roger Goodell is truly worried about player safety. And I still believe in Santa Claus.

The economic difference to the NFL is negligible, and it’s silly to think that somehow keeping officials part-time instead of making them full-time is good for player safety.

Goodell’s a bureaucrat trying to put a smiley face on an NFL shield made of the bones of people like Mike Webster and Junior Seau. It’s absurd on its’ face.

Peter King wrote in his Sports Illustrated column “Monday Morning QB” the following:

“All officials, all the time. Another story showcasing these fine, upstanding men in the striped pajamas, aka the replacement officials: I cannot say which game this story happened in, but I can tell you it did happen. Final preseason game for two teams. Official calls defensive pass-interference in front of the penalized team’s bench. Head coach lambastes the official. Official picks up the flag, tells the coach he’s not going to make the call. Coach is stunned. Imagine what will happen when something’s actually at stake.”

If NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell knows what’s good for the NFL, the players, and himself personally, an agreement will be reached either tonight or tomorrow and there will be regular NFL officials in New York calling the Cowboys at Giants game. The rest of the games don’t start until Sunday, but Wednesday is the true deadline. If he’s so concerned about “player safety,” there shouldn’t be a single contest that isn’t overseen by a trained, experienced crew.

It all boils down to pensions and part-time/full-time status for employees. I’m not an expert on the details of the sticking points, nor do I wish to be. But do we want trained vs. not-so-trained people that watch a very violent game take place all around them and attempt to keep it within the defined rules?

Players are going to push the envelope because it’s in their job description and replacement officials are to them as substitute teachers are to 6th graders. It rarely ends well. With such especially timely news of more and more problems with TBIs (Traumatic Brain Injury), officials are the front line of defense in making sure players’ actions and behavior don’t get out of hand. The equipment helps protect the body and the trained official knows more about the psychology of handling professional athletes than replacements can.

For every flag thrown, half the people involved are going to be yelling at you. An NFL gridiron is no place for on-the-job training. And picking up flags because of it certainly isn’t going to earn you any respect. The competitive men involved in the contests already smell blood in the water and will try to push even harder to gain that edge, and that’s exactly why we need the regular NFL officials in New York City Wednesday night.

They aren’t so easily intimidated.

Much like the NFL locked out the players last season, they’ve done the same thing to NFL officials this season.

Michael Arnold of the NFLRA says “The league has apparently predetermined that they’re going to keep us locked out until the third or fourth week of the regular season. Their strategy has always been lockout. We feel they’ve had a strategy from the beginning to lock us out.”

Of course, an NFL spokesman said the league was ready and willing to negotiate with them at any time.

Yeah, right. What’s he gonna say? They plan to keep the refs away from the field until Ed Hochuli gets two consecutive calls right?

I remember as a child and younger man watching Dallas Cowboys games. Remember a gentleman named Jerry Markbreit? He was a great NFL official for decades and I recall many years ago learning that ALL NFL officials had other jobs. Markbreit was a manager at 3M. I vaguely remember another was a bank president.

It’s hard to believe in this day and age of multi-million dollar salaries that the NFL is still so cheap that they can’t splurge and spend $20 million a year or whatever the number is on full-time officials. Major League Baseball has them, but they play 146 more games (!!)

The NFL has the most complicated rule book in all of sports and has 7 or 8 officials watching 106 players plus coaches and assistants. Yes, they have to watch the coaches as New York Jets assistant coach Sal Alosi discovered in December of 2010 when Miami Dolphin defender Nolan Carroll was covering a punt. Carroll, a gunner, was forced out of bounds along the Jets’ sideline and Alosi stuck his knee out, causing Carroll to tumble to the turf. The Jets lost the game and the coach as they fired him.

So, the players on the field aren’t the only responsibility the officials have.

The league is trying to emphasize more consistency in the calls the officials make this year and the result has been, in some games, nearly as many flags as there have been plays run. How does locking out the seasoned, part-time officials help make for more consistent application of the rule book, exactly?

Don’t get me wrong. The “scab” officials aren’t trained for the speed of the NFL and they’re out there hustling and doing their best. I commend them for entering a no-win situation and toughing things out, but I’m not buying what the NFL is selling here.

They knew about concussions for decades and did nothing until the problems became more public and very graphic and shocking. Now, they’re setting up “councils” and “review boards” and “concussion symptom protocols” – trying to behave like they’re being proactive about it but the reality is they’ve been slow to RE-act to it.

Now, they’ve locked out the officials, claim to want more consistency, and say they’re ready and willing to talk to the NFLRA, while Commissioner Roger Goodell says the two sides have “philosophical differences.”

REALLY?!?

Apparently so…because the NFL is acting like a bad insurance company and the officials just want to be treated fairly. The NFL appears to be in no hurry whatsoever to resolve this.

Yep…that would qualify as “philosophical differences” all right!