Why have football referees turned into overly concerned, haughty mothers who have a conniption fit every time their nine-year-old baby boy hits the grass playing in his first season of football?

Keep the darn flag in your pocket, ref. That receiver who just got his head taken off by a free safety will be just fine. I promise.

And as far as I know, Oklahoma State wide out Justin Blackmon is alive and well despite Georgia safety Reshad Jones laying him flat on his back, as is the South Carolina player Jones manhandled out of bounds.

The refs called an unnecessary roughness penalty after Blackmon was taken down, but the oh-so attentive men in stripes flagged defensive back Bacari Rambo for the foul instead of Jones.

Way to go, zebras. You are too busy flinging four penalty flags onto the field that you all got the player’s number wrong.

I know one and eight add up to nine, but if you’re going to call a bogus penalty, call it on the right “wrong-doer”.

Let the 6-foot-2 safety lay the lumber on opposing teams’ offensive threats. It’s part of the game; this is not touch football. Jones made a clean hit; he simply lowered his shoulder into the Cowboy receiver’s chest, and watched as No. 81′s back had a harsh meeting with the ground.

“Going back to the other play at Oklahoma State, I think [Jones] did everything right. He did not leap at the guy. He did not hit with his helmet; he struck with his shoulder and arm,” head coach Mark Richt said in an interview earlier this season.

Even ESPN commentators Sean McDonough and Matt Millen were somewhat flabbergasted at the call as the flags were being thrown and the head referee was announcing the call.

“[The defender is] going in there and you gotta blow that thing up, which is what [Jones] did,” announcer Matt Millen said. “I don’t know what else you want a defender to do.”

Added McDonough: “He got him with the top of his shoulder pads. Let ‘em play football.”

But with these slobber-knocking tackles comes questions of injury.

These young men didn’t begin playing football as pee-wees because it was a low-intensity cake-walk with as much hard-hitting contact as the Nutcracker ballet on Broadway.

They got in the game to hit some folks, and make some jaw-dropping plays.

Every player is aware of the risks that come along with their craft. They are surrounded by a medical staff that is the best at what they do, whether that be taping up ankles or assessing a more serious injury and treating it accordingly.

But hello, the reason these athletes wear helmets and pads in the first place is to help protect them from blows such as the one Jones delivered to Blackmon.

Even the pros have been feeling the woes of these crackpot penalties.

Baltimore Ravens’ linebacker Terrell Suggs got nailed with a roughing the passer penalty Sunday when he fell into and brushed the leg of New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady.

When the referee was announcing the call, Brady was seen cracking a smile as if he knew it was a cockamamie foul.

Suggs’ teammate Ray Lewis was disgruntled about the call, and did not hold back when speaking to members of the media after the Ravens’ loss to the Patriots.

“We stop them, see a flag for a personal foul and Brady’s laughing? That ain’t no personal foul if you’re still smiling. Bottom line,” Lewis said.

A former teammate of Brady’s sided with Lewis, and sent a message to the two-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback.

“Tom Brady, if you’re listening, take off the skirt and put on some slacks. Toughen up,” former Patriots’ safety Rodney Harrison said.

By all means, if a defender perpetrates a cheap shot, the refs need to toss that little yellow snot rag.

But they also need to be able to differentiate between a cheap shot and just good ol’ fashion defense. That’s what they get paid to do.

At the start of a football-filled weekend, no one tunes into the match-ups to watch the players delicately run around and play a game of tag like little schoolgirls on the playground.

Fans turn games on to watch the Taylor Mayses of the game administer bone-crushing hits on unsuspecting wide receivers running routes over the middle.

If you refs are going to continue to make these kinds of shameful calls, then you may as well add some dainty flowers to every uniform in college football, give the boys some skirts to wear while they play and let them battle in games of powder puff football.

So quit playing the over-protective mother role, refs, and let the boys play some football.