It got lost in the excitement of the NFL hiring its first female official a couple of weeks ago, but something else happened that’s just as historic. Over the last two seasons, the NFL has fired 20 referees, the most in almost 13 years and there’s a chance they aren’t done yet.
Is that enough? I have no idea because, frankly, I find it hard to remember even the bad officials’ names once the games are over. I remember the horrible, game-changing calls just like everybody else. The names? I’m 41 years old. They’re not going to stay in there.
According to NFL head of officiating Dan Blandino, the officials were let go because they consistently graded out near the bottom among their peers.
“We take it very seriously and we want the best officials,” Blandino said on April 9. “We are going to do a comprehensive review of the entire staff every year and if an official isn’t performing up to the standard, they won’t be a part of the NFL. And we have many qualified candidates that are ready to step into that place. So the pressure is immense and we understand that responsibility.”
According to Blandino, the referees are split up into three tiers each season due to their on-the-field performance. The officials in the bottom tier get retrained the first time they end up there. The second time they show up at the bottom, they get the hook. All that sounds well and good, but that doesn’t explain why there isn’t a purge like this every year or why this year’s firing line was so big. There were only 119 referees in the NFL last season, so 20 refs represents almost 17 percent of their staff.
“Any official, in any competitive arena, could have a poor season, so one season may not necessarily cause us to terminate an official,” Blandino said. “But if it becomes a trend, multiple seasons… and if we still don’t see improvement, that’s when we move on.”
The issue with NFL officials, to me, has always been accountability. Coaches and pundits can complain about botched or missed calls, but there never seemed to be any punitive system in place to punish referees for bungling sometimes game-changing calls. Every conceivable mistake has been made, from giving a team an extra down, to ending the game with time still on the clock, to flat out ignoring the established rules and calling for a replay after the ball has already been snapped on the next play.
Most of the time the ex-officials that have been hired by CBS or Fox to explain the calls spend too much time carrying their former co-worker’s water than calling them out on bogus flags. If you have to spend 10 minutes explaining a call, it was probably bungled.
Last year, the NFL hired 13 new officials. This year, the number hasn’t been released, but it will at least be 22 since the league is expanding its roster to possibly 121 officials this year for what they’re calling “swing depth.”
“It’s really, just like a team, finding the right balance of youth and experience and having it all mesh together,” Blandino said. “Obviously it’s not perfect. We had challenges and bumps in the road. But we felt like getting the right people was key.”
The NFL currently has about 2,000 potential officials in its development program. They use a network of 92 officiating scouts to find potential officials from high school and college football games. The league has also made an effort to reach out to former NFL players in an effort to improve officiating, creating the Legends Officiating Development Program.
The NFL will release its full roster of officials later this month. Nine new officials have already been named on the NFL’s Operations website, including Thomas and the son of former NFL referee Walt Coleman, Walt Coleman IV, who will be a side judge. The list includes two teachers, a high school basketball coach and one middle school principal.
