Some people think that the constitutionality of the individual health care mandate is the most important legal issue of the day. But others clearly believe that it is the question of whether instant replay review of NFL referee calls should be conducted under a de novo standard. For those interested in this crucial issue, Texas lawprof Mitchell Berman has written a particularly thorough statement of the case for a de novo standard in this article on Slate.
I defended the same position in much lesser depth here and here. The second of my previous two posts on this subject has lots of links to arguments on both sides by other legal scholars. No one can say that we legal academics ignore the truly vital questions of the day.