It's awfully quiet this week around the NFL commissioner's office.

Just one week removed from his "unacceptable" proclamation, Paul Tagliabue has had nothing to say (and we presume, will say nothing) about the latest fiasco from his part-time employees.

That the refs managed to bungle things yet again in these playoffs (with the bruises still showing on the Giants no less) should not be a shock to anyone. Instant replay, combined with an overly expansive and needlessly complicated rulebook has put guys like Ron Blum (golf pro by week, arbiter of pro football playoff games on Sundays) squarely in the "deer in headlights" position for several years now.

And with the sports-yak universe expanding beyond just radio these days to televised zing-a-thons on ESPN, the outcry over bad calls is louder than a jumbo jet taking off over your head.

So is Paul Tagliabue going to come out this week and say that Blum not knowing what is reviewable is "unacceptable" and that changes must be made right away? Don't count on it. Tags is probably back to working on his own man-made disaster to bring an outdoor Super Bowl to cold weather New York or Washington D.C.

As such, an outdoor Super Bowl in late January, has the prospect of being the league's crowning mistake. Imagine a steady, numbing 40 degree rain. Horrible field conditions, and corporate sponsors fleeing to their hotel rooms by half time.

If this idea were a movie, we'd call it "Ishtar."

All of which underscores that the era of a strong, independent pro sports commissioner is long since dead. And Tagliabue is especially ill-suited to take a strong hand in fixing the NFL's whistle brigade.

So if he won't do it. I will.

Remember when they used to put the quaint little "replay clock" on the screen during a review? The league had its nice little 90 second rule in place, so that the game wouldn't be held up watching video tape all day. Yeah, ha ha, so do I. Where is that clock now? The league doesn't even bother. During the Titans game last weekend, the replay that got Cowher steamed and Blum into the Dumb-Dumb Hall of Fame, took 9 minutes, 23 seconds to sort out!

When it was all said and done, Cowher had to scream and yell to overturn a play that was then wiped out by a 5 yard penalty on the kicking team. The re-kick was even worse, and the net difference for the Titans was 14 yards of field position. That's right. 14 yards of field, in the third quarter. Hardly life changing, game saving stuff.

Remember how replay proponents said that it would only be used for a limited number of plays. What's happened to that? The only things not reviewable as far as I can tell, are what the opposing coach had for lunch, and the 2000 election in Florida.

Remember too how replay proponents said that by losing a timeout on an incorrect challenge, coaches would really think hard about throwing a red flag? Again, har har. Did you see Herman Edwards of the Jets, use a timeout to think about calling for a replay, then doing so, losing, and flushing his last timeout in the process. Oh yeah, it wasn't even to give his team a first down, just a 4th and 6 instead of 4th and 18.

The two most backbreaking calls in football are pass interference and holding. Are they reviewable? No. In my world, replay would be a hell of a lot better if that was the only thing you could challenge. As it stands, replay is the sand in the gears of a mighty machine, that is slowly but surely grinding the games to a halt.

Not only that, but there have been more replay debacles (the "Tuck Rule" and Blum's "I'll double check") than game saving reversals. Go ahead, name me a single big play that replay overturned which had an overwhelming impact on a post-season game. You can't. It doesn't exist.