[ Note: This column was written before yesterday's events and held for obvious reasons. ]

When TMQ looks at the pro sports scene, he sees this: Major League Baseball in financial bedlam so bad, whole franchises may fold. Hockey bouncing from network to network in search of anyone who wants to watch. NBA ratings in free-fall, with the brilliant master plan to let high-school kids loose on the court. Of the major pro team sports, only football is smokin'. Strong ratings, No. 1 in poll popularity, consecutive attendance records.

So why is the National Football League searching for a way to screw things up?

Tuesday Morning Quarterback refers, of course, to the replacement refs. They're nice guys. They mean well. And they got in on the late flight after working high-school games.

TMQ cannot fathom why, observing how fragile sports allegiance has become in the 500-cable-stations age, the NFL is gambling with devaluing the NFL. This weekend the replacement refs didn't blow the outcome of any games, but they did fumble countless calls. Check the tapes of the Dallas-Tampa and Oakland-Kansas City games particularly; check the sideline call on Amani Toomer's third-quarter "touchdown" last night. A few of the mutated zebras did sterling jobs; it was impressive to see them toss yellow for roughing the passer against the Ravens, a call the regular people of stripes were afraid to make last year in the playoffs. But overall, the replacement refs are a blown game looking for a place to happen.

Why is the league risking loss of face when the stakes are so small? Meeting the real refs' requests would cost the NFL about $6 million this year. That's roughly $200,000 per franchise—the minimum salary for one rookie free agent—against average franchise annual revenue of $131 million (Wall Street Journal estimate). This is pocket change and so much less important than keeping the fans believing they are watching the best possible product.

Central to the dispute is that football refs are the only ones paid part time and expected to have primary bread-winner occupations. NBA, NHL, and MLB officials are full-time and draw full-time pay. True, the zebras work far fewer games than other officials—an MLB umpire has to be full-time, though maybe he could do Amway during the offseason—and true, for decades zebras have held other jobs and still been good on Sundays. But the speed and intensity of the game just keep increasing, as does the money (in TV revenues) on the line. The NFL should give in and make its refs full-time so that they can practice offseason as other pro officials.

Many owners suspect, of course, that as the refs demand full-time wages, their true plan is to take the added scratch and keep the other jobs anyway. So call the bluff and say: We'll provide full-time pay so long as you resign from other employment. Give the refs a big raise, and then ban outside income, making them like federal judges. (For what a Senate confirmation hearing for an NFL referee would be like, see below.) But do something decisive before the wrong team wins a game because of a replacement whistle.

In other NFL news, since the point at the end of last season when they were 13-3 and widely favored to win the Super Bowl, the Tennessee Flaming Thumbtacks have lost two straight home games, surrendering 55 points. Thus do the football gods continue to test the wandering franchise, yet oh, toward what end?

Best Plays of the Week: Zing! Perfect out and up from space alien Kurt Warner to Isaac Bruce to put the Rams into position for the winning figgie in OT at Philadelphia. The ball even arrived at the right part of Bruce's body, just above his inside shoulder. That hyperspectral transponder Warner brought with him on the starcruiser from his homeworld sure is coming in handy.