Larry Brown Sports

Just how bad are the NFL’s replacement referees? According to the Lingerie Football League, so bad that they were fired by the LFL for incompetence before being hired by the NFL as replacement refs.

The LFL emailed the following statement to many media outlets including LBS to let the truth be known about how unqualified the replacement refs were:

“Because of the LFL’s perception it is that much more critical for us to hire officiating crews that are competent, not only for the credibility of our game but to keep our athletes safer,” commissioner Mitchell Mortaza said in a statement. “Due to several on-field incompetent officiating we chose to part ways with with a couple crews which apparently are now officiating in the NFL. We have a lot of respect for our officials but we felt the officiating was not in line with our expectations.

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The Lingerie Football League isn’t just about girls in skimpy outfits and reality shows — they actually play some real football.

Witness the hit above: Regina Rage quarterback Nikki Johnson lowers her shoulder on Toronto’s Devine Burton to score a touchdown in Regina’s week 3 upset win. I mean Johnson just laid a forearm shiv on Burton! You think you those kinds of hits on Saturdays and Sundays? Well you do in the LFL. You think a little skinny dude like DeSean Jackson could handle something like that? Not a chance. Some of these ladies are tough.

Slowly but surely, the Lingerie Football League has emerged as a microcosm for two things people love in America: sex and violence. The sex — well, that’s pretty self-explanatory. There are certain players who would like to see the skimpy outfits go away sometime in the future, but that’s not happening as long as the LFL is in existence. As for the fighting, we’re starting to see a lot more of that as of late while the LFL is on its All-Star Game world tour.

In the video below that Off the Bench passed along, you see Tessa Barrara of the Los Angeles Temptation throw a late hit on Kyle DeHaven of the Baltimore Charm during an All-Star game in Australia. DeHaven did not appreciate the extracurricular activity, so she responded by punching Barrara in the gut. Then, the swears starting flying and the ratings flash upward a tiny bit. The video contains very strong language.

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Over the years we’ve watched a number of All-Star games from various professional sports leagues, and rarely do tempers ever boil over. Guys who are typically stone-faced and irritable during the regular season (see Belichick, Bill) even seem to enjoy themselves when they get together for events like the Pro Bowl. Apparently the coaches in the Lingerie Football League have more passion than those in the NFL, NBA, NHL, or any other league for that matter.

LFL coaches Tony Nguyen and Chandler Brown went at it in the middle of the LFL All-Star game last week and had to be separated. It all started when one of Chandler’s players kicked the ball out of bounds on a kickoff, which apparently infuriated Nguyen and is some sort of bush league move in an LFL All-Star game. Who knew? The lovely ladies in pink had to separate the coaches before play continued. Check out this video of the incident, which contains extremely strong language and is NSFW:

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We told you not to be fearful of the Lingerie Football League taking a one-year leave of absence. The league isn’t going anywhere, and all indications are that the intention is to grow the beast and bring it back stronger than ever. The city of Omaha can attest to that, as they are planning to host an LFL team when play resumes in 2013.

According to the Omaha World-Herald, the Omaha-area franchise — which has not been given a name — will play two home games in Ralston’s 3,500 seat arena. Members of the Nebraska Stampede, another women’s football team that plays fully clothed and fully padded, are reportedly upset that they were passed over and have to play their home games at a high school field.

“From my perspective, it’s really frustrating that this is the reality in our society,” Tina Johnson, the Stampede’s general manager and starting fullback said. “Sex sells, and it always will. If they want to go out there and play in their lingerie, then by all means, that’s their power. I just wish we could get that same kind of respect with our clothes on.”

Johnson is not alone in her thinking. In fact, some LFL players have even expressed a desire for the league to use less skimpy uniforms and for the football to be the selling point, not the scantily clad women. At this point in time, it’s obvious the league has no intention of making that happen.

The bottom line is Lingerie Football is coming to Nebraska, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who are ready to celebrate it.

Just when it looked like things were really starting to get exciting, the Lingerie Football League has to go and leave us hanging for a year. According to an Associated Press report, the LFL is taking a year off this fall and will resume play in April of 2013. The good news is the one-year hiatus is supposedly being used to better the sport.

The LFL intends to use the year off to continue expanding the game abroad and also realign the schedule so lingerie football becomes a warm-weather sport. Typically I would say that’s good news because it means the players will be wearing less, but I don’t think that would even be legal. We have heard some rumblings that a few players are hoping the sport will ditch the skimpy outfits someday, but that seems less likely if they’re going to be playing in warmer weather. Phew.

Normally, taking a year off might signal that the league is in trouble, but I don’t think that’s the case here. The LFL is set to start an All-Star tour around the globe next month and is looking to expand with teams in Australia by 2013. This looks like an organization that is on the verge of great things, not one that is in danger of collapsing. That’s a positive thing for all of us.

H/T Off the Bench

Angela Rypien is the daughter of Super Bowl XXII quarterback Mark Rypien, and like her father, she is a professional quarterback. Also like her father, she has now signed to play quarterback for a team in the Washington DC area.

Rypien signed with the Baltimore Crush of the Lingerie Football League (they don’t have a team in DC) marking the first signing of the offseason leading up to the 2013 season. Rypien played quarterback for the 2-2 Seattle Mist last
season. They were third in the league in yards per game and led the league with 101 passing yards per game.

Below is a video from her LFL debut where she threw for two touchdowns:

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