Strike 1: Complaints about things like the officiating all seem to melt away at the end of an epic win, like the one the Broncos registered on Sunday against the arch-rival Kansas City Chiefs at raucous Empower Field.

That doesn’t change the fact that the officiating – in fact, officiating all over the game of football – has gotten out of hand.

Too. Many. Flags.

In every game, both pro and college.

We could get specific, and talk about the mind-numbingly terrible pass interference/defensive holding or whatever made up excuse was given for throwing a flag from the other side of the field – well away from where Jahdae Barron had cleanly intercepted a terrible Patrick Mahomes pass and returned it for what would have been a game changing pick-6. That egregious mistake by the referees directly cost the Broncos six points they had earned.

Or we could highlight the highly questionable PI on Riley Moss that set up KC’s first points. And so on.

You saw it. You understand.

And the bad calls went both ways. When has anyone seen a slight push in the back by a player on the kicking team, while running downfield during a punt chasing a would be blocker on the return team, get called for a block in the back? That flag against the Chiefs was equally ridiculous and the ref should never even have considered throwing it. (At least the 70-yard punt return by Marvin Mims Jr. wasn’t called back.)

Both teams were called for 10 (accepted) penalties, about half of which were fouls that could have been ignored because they didn’t influence the play.

Are these guys getting paid per flag they throw? Are those yellow hankies burning a hole in their pockets?

Call it “over-officiating.” And it’s making the games much harder for fans to enjoy.

It’s not any better in college football. Back in October during a game against Northwestern, a Nebraska defensive lineman, who never crossed into the neutral zone, was flagged for “abrupt movement.” Since when is that even a thing?

Everyone who follows football knows that it’s the only game without full-time officials. All these people have real, day jobs during the week. Being a football referee is a nicely paying side hustle. Considering the amount of money that both the pro and college games generate and what’s at stake, it remains unforgivable that football officials aren’t full-time employees. If they were, they could spend the week in between games studying game film, working on their physical conditioning (keeping up with today’s athletes is not for the slow or the weak) and generally get better at their jobs.

Perhaps the game has advanced to the point where there are just too many rules? Maybe officials feel compelled to err on the side of throwing a flag to make sure they don’t miss even a slight violation that didn’t used to be a violation? After all, they’ve got instant replay to back them up, right? We do see a good number of flags get thrown and then get picked up.

What is that telling us? That these guys aren’t trying to stay in the background – and remember the old saying that you know a game has been well officiated if you don’t remember noticing the officials – but rather they’re seeking to be noticed, and be impactful in the game? When that happens, that’s when questions about integrity and possible gambling start to pop up.

It’s most likely that football officials have been instructed to try to flag every little thing so that if it turns out to be nothing, the call can be reversed or the flag just picked up. Never mind the endless stoppages of play, right?

The person(s) that came up with that strategy? He or she needs to realize that he or she is working to ruin the game and should be fired.

Enough already. Let ’em play.