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Sherman blasts refs for poor knowledge of rule book

Chuck Cook / USA TODAY Sports

After schooling the referees on their own rules following a poorly-officiated Monday night game against the Buffalo Bills earlier this season, Richard Sherman is once again calling out the men in black and white stripes.

In last week's game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Seattle Seahawks had to challenge a holding call in the end zone to be awarded a safety. Sherman says it's embarrassing that players and coaches know the rules better than referees.

"So many nuanced rules that the refs don't even know half the time, because most of the refs on that play didn't know we could challenge the play," Sherman said Wednesday, according to ESPN's Sheil Kapadia. "The only one who knew was the white hat. That's kind of ridiculous.

"You deal with that on a week-in, week-out basis. And they're like, 'Just call New York.' But what if you've got five games going on? Five games calling New York at the same time? It doesn't make sense. You can simplify that, but of course they won't, because like I've said before, you have people who've never played the game writing the rules for a game they've never played, and they have no idea how it works."

Sherman says he had to speak to the white-hatted official after another referee couldn't clearly explain to head coach Pete Carroll if the play was reviewable.

The Seahawks play a more aggressive and physical style of pass defense than most teams. Sherman says that his team learns which officiating crew they will have early in the week, but it doesn't usually help with predicting the calls.

"Everything is subjective," Sherman said. "So on any given day, maybe he had his coffee this morning, maybe he'll call this. Maybe he didn't have his coffee ... then maybe he'll call something else. It's human error out there.

"So at the end of the day, that's all you're playing with is human error. So it depends on what they think they saw and what they're feeling that day, things like that."

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