Sports Curmudgeon - Topical Rants: Full-Time NFL Officials?

1/13/03 - This topic has a whole lot of miles on it and it gets dusted off every time there is an officiating blunder in the NFL of sufficient magnitude to keep the story in the headlines for more than 72 hours. The argument in favor of hiring the officials into full-time status goes something like this:

You would not have these kinds of gaffes if the referees in the NFL were full-time officials and not part-time dilettantes. You get some corollaries to this argument too such as:

They'd know the rules better because they would concentrate on football all the time.

They'd make better calls because they would be practicing officiating all the time.

The moon is made of green cheese. [Just checking to see if you are paying attention.]

Up until last Saturday, here was my position on this issue:

I don't give a fig one way or the other if the NFL decides to hire its officials full-time or not. And the reason was that I didn't think that action would improve – or deprove – the quality of officiating very much at all. The officiating crew of the Pittsburgh/Tennessee game last Saturday changed my mind on all of that. Let me explain why.

Having officiated thousands of games in a variety of sports in my lifetime, I have come to realize that there are three critical elements that make for a good official. First he has to know the rules; second, he has to be in the proper position to see the play so that he can apply the rules; third, he has to have the temerity to blow the whistle/throw the flag when he sees something that is outside the rules.

Let's be perfectly clear here. Full-time NFL officials are not likely to be significantly better at the second or third points here than part-time officials. And – up until Saturday – I had no reason to believe that more study of the rulebook was necessary for NFL officials.

But when a coach has to debate with a referee – and by proxy with the other six members of the crew - and it turns out that the coach has to teach the officiating crew what the rules are, that is UNACCEPTABLE. Bill Cowher is absolutely right when he says it is ludicrous that he had to explain the rules to the officiating crew regarding what plays are challengeable and what plays are not. The fact that seven officials on the field had it wrong until "the booth" corrected them should be an embarrassment of gargantuan proportion for the NFL. I'm sure the PR apparatus will swing into high hear if that story "has legs" and does not die off in 48 hours; but make no mistake about it, Bill Cowher is right and he absolutely should not be fined for his remarks. He speaks the truth; and as it says in the Bible:

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. It may cost the NFL $200 - $250K per year per official to get people to give up other careers to be officials. After all, the NFL will only put them on the field 15 times a year for about 3.5 hours a game. The league will have to pay handsomely to get people to put up with that amount of "downtime" on a job. So what? The league only needs 20 crews of 7 officials to do the games on the field. If 140 men are paid $250K each per year, that brings the salary cost for the league to $35M. That is a lot of money if you apply it to my bank account or probably to yours; for the NFL, that is not a big deal. Let's give that some perspective:

League revenues are reportedly in the range of $2.5B per year so this would represent about 1.5% of revenue for the league in a year.

If the NFL actually decided to move in this direction, they might in the long term gain an ancillary benefit. This should not be the impetus for any change, but it may be some gravy in the future. By making this a career unto itself, the NFL may be able to hire as trainees - at a much lower salary and maybe not full time - people at a much younger age. That would put younger officials on the field eventually, and that cannot hurt the quality of officiating when you consider the second of my three critical points - an official has to be in position to see what is happening to have a prayer of making the correct call. Forget any knee-jerk thought that this is ageism; young men will keep up with the speed of the NFL game batter than will old men - on average.

I always thought that the call for full-time officials in the NFL was a knee-jerk reaction to some specific bad call somewhere and, for the life of me, I could never see how it would have helped. The classic gaffe was the erroneous call on the coin flip on Thanksgiving Day about five years ago. Full-time or part-time employment status had nothing to do with that mistake. But last Saturday was different; the officials did not know the rules as well as a coach on the sidelines. The NFL cannot tolerate that situation, if the NFL accepts it, they are asking for anarchy on the field. Let me put it in terms that the league and the owners might understand more easily:

The integrity of your product is at stake. Your playoff-qualified referees have now proven that they do not know the rules sufficiently well to do a game "seamlessly". Your officials are the guardians of the integrity of your game; and if that goes, so does the value of your league. Remember the XFL??? Nothing can or will prevent human error from happening on the field. Not replay, not full-time officials, not nothing. Human error is price the NFL pays for having human officials and there is no real alternative in 2003. Human error must always be accepted as a possibility and identified for what it is. But "not knowing the rules" that the officials are out there to apply is something very different. That has to be changed – quickly.

Oh, for the record, the play at the end of the Pittsburgh/Tennessee game that got Bill Cowher so upset that he ran onto the field to confront the referee was called absolutely correctly. Cowher can like it or not, the Steeler trying to block the field goal ran into the kicker and the rules say that is a penalty. The officials got that call absolutely right. But they also convinced me to change my mind; I now make the call for full-time officials in the NFL.

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...

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		Full-Time NFL Officials?

		1/13/03 - This topic has a whole lot of miles on it and it gets dusted off every time there is an officiating blunder in the NFL of sufficient magnitude to keep the story in the headlines for more than 72 hours. The argument in favor of hiring the officials into full-time status goes something like this: You would not have these kinds of gaffes if the referees in the NFL were full-time officials and not part-time dilettantes. You get some corollaries to this argument too such as: There would be more accountability for referees if this were their only source of income. They'd know the rules better because they would concentrate on football all the time. They'd make better calls because they would be practicing officiating all the time. The moon is made of green cheese. [Just checking to see if you are paying attention.] Up until last Saturday, here was my position on this issue: I don't give a fig one way or the other if the NFL decides to hire its officials full-time or not. And the reason was that I didn't think that action would improve – or deprove – the quality of officiating very much at all. The officiating crew of the Pittsburgh/Tennessee game last Saturday changed my mind on all of that. Let me explain why. Having officiated thousands of games in a variety of sports in my lifetime, I have come to realize that there are three critical elements that make for a good official. First he has to know the rules; second, he has to be in the proper position to see the play so that he can apply the rules; third, he has to have the temerity to blow the whistle/throw the flag when he sees something that is outside the rules. Let's be perfectly clear here. Full-time NFL officials are not likely to be significantly better at the second or third points here than part-time officials. And – up until Saturday – I had no reason to believe that more study of the rulebook was necessary for NFL officials. But when a coach has to debate with a referee – and by proxy with the other six members of the crew - and it turns out that the coach has to teach the officiating crew what the rules are, that is UNACCEPTABLE. Bill Cowher is absolutely right when he says it is ludicrous that he had to explain the rules to the officiating crew regarding what plays are challengeable and what plays are not. The fact that seven officials on the field had it wrong until "the booth" corrected them should be an embarrassment of gargantuan proportion for the NFL. I'm sure the PR apparatus will swing into high hear if that story "has legs" and does not die off in 48 hours; but make no mistake about it, Bill Cowher is right and he absolutely should not be fined for his remarks. He speaks the truth; and as it says in the Bible: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. It may cost the NFL $200 - $250K per year per official to get people to give up other careers to be officials. After all, the NFL will only put them on the field 15 times a year for about 3.5 hours a game. The league will have to pay handsomely to get people to put up with that amount of "downtime" on a job. So what? The league only needs 20 crews of 7 officials to do the games on the field. If 140 men are paid $250K each per year, that brings the salary cost for the league to $35M. That is a lot of money if you apply it to my bank account or probably to yours; for the NFL, that is not a big deal. Let's give that some perspective: Per team, that represents $1.1M per year – or about the cost of a backup player. League revenues are reportedly in the range of $2.5B per year so this would represent about 1.5% of revenue for the league in a year. If the NFL actually decided to move in this direction, they might in the long term gain an ancillary benefit. This should not be the impetus for any change, but it may be some gravy in the future. By making this a career unto itself, the NFL may be able to hire as trainees - at a much lower salary and maybe not full time - people at a much younger age. That would put younger officials on the field eventually, and that cannot hurt the quality of officiating when you consider the second of my three critical points - an official has to be in position to see what is happening to have a prayer of making the correct call. Forget any knee-jerk thought that this is ageism; young men will keep up with the speed of the NFL game batter than will old men - on average. I always thought that the call for full-time officials in the NFL was a knee-jerk reaction to some specific bad call somewhere and, for the life of me, I could never see how it would have helped. The classic gaffe was the erroneous call on the coin flip on Thanksgiving Day about five years ago. Full-time or part-time employment status had nothing to do with that mistake. But last Saturday was different; the officials did not know the rules as well as a coach on the sidelines. The NFL cannot tolerate that situation, if the NFL accepts it, they are asking for anarchy on the field. Let me put it in terms that the league and the owners might understand more easily: The integrity of your product is at stake. Your playoff-qualified referees have now proven that they do not know the rules sufficiently well to do a game "seamlessly". Your officials are the guardians of the integrity of your game; and if that goes, so does the value of your league. Remember the XFL??? Nothing can or will prevent human error from happening on the field. Not replay, not full-time officials, not nothing. Human error is price the NFL pays for having human officials and there is no real alternative in 2003. Human error must always be accepted as a possibility and identified for what it is. But "not knowing the rules" that the officials are out there to apply is something very different. That has to be changed – quickly. Oh, for the record, the play at the end of the Pittsburgh/Tennessee game that got Bill Cowher so upset that he ran onto the field to confront the referee was called absolutely correctly. Cowher can like it or not, the Steeler trying to block the field goal ran into the kicker and the rules say that is a penalty. The officials got that call absolutely right. But they also convinced me to change my mind; I now make the call for full-time officials in the NFL. But don't get me wrong, I love sports... << Back to the Topical Rants Index = Home = Recent = Topical = Wagers = = Archives = Pros = Scores = Contact =