I Hate You, Ed Hochuli

What the fuck, Ed Hochuli?

No, seriously, what the fuck?

I’m up comfortably, 102-90, in my work league near the end of the 4 p.m. games yesterday. I’m a little nervous because the team I’m playing has both Jay Cutler and Eddie Royal, but I breathe a big sigh of relief when the ball comically slips out of Cutler’s hands at the San Diego 10-yard line. But there’s some confusion. Was it a fumble? Was it an incomplete pass? The red flag flies from the pocket of Norv Turner’s pleated wrinkle-frees and onto the field, and I exhale, confident that the replays will bear out the fact that this was a plain old motherfucking fumble.

Which they do. No matter which angle you view the replay from, it’s a fumble. Over and over, I watch as the ball pops out of the helmet-haired QB’s hands like a bar of soap in the shower.

After seemingly spending an hour watching the play through his peep show viewer, Hochuli arrogantly trots out onto the field like a high school gym teacher and announces that he blew the whistle – and the call. It was a fumble, he says, but because the play was blown dead before San Diego could recover, Denver keeps the ball.

What?

HOW CAN YOU JUST ADMIT THAT YOU TOTALLY SCREWED UP AND NOT DO ANYTHING TO FIX IT? WHY DID YOU BLOW THE WHISTLE, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?!? HAS ALL THAT MUSCLE MILK FUCKED UP YOUR BRAIN???

Two plays later, Cutler finds Royal for a TD. Of course he does. 102-100.

Okay, this can still work, I tell myself. But then Mike Shanahan, in a move that I still can’t rationally discuss, decides to go for two. What is this, the Sugar Bowl?

Cutler to Royal for the 2 point conversion. 102-104. I lose.

I hope your wife forced you to stay outside and do lat pull-downs all night, Ed Hochuli. I hope she made you sleep out in the garage with your Bowflex. But you know what? No matter how big those biceps get, they’ll still be attached to the biggest douchebag ever to ref an NFL game. I hate you. I hate you so much.

– Kevin B., Philadelphia, PA

Who Else Do the People Hate?

I hate you so much, Hurricane Ike. With Andre Johnson and Matt Schaub out of my line-up as a result of you forcing the Texans-Ravens game to be postponed, I had to start Jamarcus Russell and Muhsin Muhammad. I’ll give you one guess as to how that worked out for me.

– Natalie P., Boston, MA

You know who I hate? Anquan Boldin. As an owner of Larry Fitzgerald, I figured the two would cancel each other out. And, basically, they did. Except for those three touchdowns Kurt Warner threw to Boldin. Thanks for costing me the win, Warner.

- Charles C., New York, NY