It’s official: NFL officials much better than you think

WHILE never-instant replay has made NFL officials fish-in-a-barrel targets, I often find their work to be so good as to surpass the human condition that replay unrealistically was intended to eliminate.

The Rams-Packers game on Fox last Sunday was loaded with close, tough calls, yet the decisive officiating crew got all of them right the first time, every time, and even survived a needless replay stoppage, called from above, that confirmed a complete pass call before the half.

The most extraordinary came on a leaping catch by Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp at the very back of the end zone for two points. The catch was sensational, but so, too, was the call.

The back judge, as if blessed with two sets of eyes, seemed to have simultaneously checked the catch and Kupp’s landing, inches clear of the boundary. And he nailed it.

These men, and increasingly, women, rarely receive the credit and admiration they earn. They’re so much easier to bash.

Paul Jackson — The Post’s longtime travel editor and a kind, smiling presence as he walked through the coarse chaos of the newsroom as deadlines neared, passed away last month at 95.

Though he never spoke of it as far as I knew, Jackson may have been the youngest World War II American correspondent to serve outside the U.S. Assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, he edited the ship’s newspaper and managed its radio station, in addition to reporting to his battle station, while the “Big E” patrolled the Pacific.

His work was read and heard by 2,200 crewmen on the most decorated ship in the war.

For all the break-itdown analysis following the Giants’ win over the Eagles last Sunday, the play that replaced more local misery with a measure of success and the faintest glimmer of hope was widely downplayed.

With 15 seconds left, Philadelphia had a fourth down, trailing 13-7. Jalen Hurts scrambled free then hit WR Jalen Reagor with a perfect pass inches from the end zone. Reagor dropped it, thus no TD and no PAT to beat the Giants, 14-13.

Though we’d never know it had we not watched, that was the big story in that game.