The NFL has commenced the process of lining up replacement officials in advance of another lockout of game officials. The head of the officiating union finds the news as stunning as everyone else should.
“Frankly,” NFL Referees Association executive director Scott Green told Kevin Seifert of ESPN, “I’m surprised they would even consider it after 2012.”
The use of replacements during the 2012 lockout culminated in the Fail Mary game, a Week 3 Monday night debacle between the Packers and Seahawks that quickly resolved the impasse. As explained in Playmakers, some within the league expected things to go off the rails long before the final game of the third week of the regular season.
Via Seifert, Green specifically expressed a concern mentioned in our initial item about the league’s effort to identify potential replacement officials: The possibility that replacement officials bet legally on sports. Green also believes that player safety could be impacted by officials who have no experience with football featuring the biggest, strongest, and fastest players.
The latter concern was raised 14 years ago, during the last lockout. The former is new, because legalized sports betting beyond Nevada dates back to 2018, six years after the last lockout.
Regardless, one email sent to junior colleges in California an email obtained by PFT indicates that the NFL hopes to identify “approximately 150 officials,” with the goal of reducing the group to roughly 130 after a four-day clinic in May.
Hopefully it’s just posturing by the league. Replacement officials do nothing to advance the interests of the sport, and the stewards of the game should not be willing to toy with the integrity of the game in order to save a little money.
Get ready for Project Fail Mary 2.
Per multiple sources, the NFL has begun the process of identifying potential replacement game officials, in the event that ongoing negotiations with the NFL Referees Association fail to result in a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The league’s effort targets college officials, with the news making its way to PFT via a specific focus on officials working for “small college” conferences.
An email making the rounds (but not sent directly from someone tied to the league office) explains that the goal is to perform background checks and “onboarding” of potential replacements in April, to conduct an introductory, face-to-face gathering in May, to provide training via Zoom over the summer, to work training camps in August, and to transition to regular-season work in September.
The NFL declined comment on the situation.
It’s not presently known whether the league is also targeting officials employed by major conferences. The fact that those officials are often on track to becoming future NFL officials creates a “scab” dynamic that could create issues among current officials and future hires. During the 2012 lockout, most of the replacement officials came from lower college divisions and even high school.
The last lockout officially began with the Hall of Fame game. It was resolved in the aftermath of the disastrous Week 3 “Fail Mary” Monday night game between the Packers and Seahawks.
Previously, reports have emerged that the NFL is exploring centralizing some of the officiating functions at the league office, if there’s another lockout.
The possibility of another lockout comes during an age of legalized gambling, which considerably raises the stakes regarding the potential impact of substandard officiating on the integrity of the game — and on the integrity of wagers on games. The easy availability of betting apps in most states also places even greater importance on ensuring that the replacement officials don’t bet on sports.
Hopefully, the two sides will reach a fair deal. It won’t be good for the game to have another set of replacement officials, because it wasn’t good for the game to put three weeks of a 17-week regular season in the hands of lesser officials.
In 2012, for example, Green Bay’s loss to the Seahawks, thanks to a controversial game-ending touchdown call, ultimately was the difference between the Packers being the No. 2 seed and the No. 3 seed. If they’d finished 12-4 and not 11-5, the Packers would have earned a bye, the 11-4-1 49ers would have hosted the sixth-seeded Vikings in the wild-card round, and the Packers (if San Francisco had beaten Minnesota) would have hosted the divisional round game against San Francisco.
Instead, the Packers played the 49ers at Candlestick Park, and the 49ers won the game, 45-31. The 49ers eventually lost the Super Bowl that year, to the Ravens.
The NFL Referees Association has finally begun to push back.
On Monday, the league leaked to the network it now partially owns a pinch of propaganda regarding the ongoing talks on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NFL and the NFLRA. On Tuesday, the journalism wing of ESPN produced a snippet from the other side.
Via Kalyn Kahler of ESPN, a January 8 letter to game officials from the union explained that “despite [multiple] meetings,” there has been “little meaningful process” on a new CBA. Added the letter, “League negotiators have been communicating misleading & incomplete info to owners and media.”
Kahler adds that one of the sticking points arises from the probationary period at the outset of an official’s career. Currently, they can be fired for poor performance without the need to show cause during the first three years of the relationship. The NFL wants it to be longer; the NFLRA wants it to be shorter.
It’s a good start for the NFLRA. But they need to do more. The NFL has the ability to push its narratives with the press of a button. The union has to be constantly ready to push back.
Hell, it needs to do more than push back. It needs to push first. The labor fight between the league and game officials needs to be viewed as a battle for the hearts and minds of media and fans. Plenty of the media, however, has already been bought.
But the league can’t buy the fans. And the NFLRA has plenty of ammunition. Starting — and ending — with what happened the last time the NFL drew a line in the toxic rubber FieldTurf pellets: The same league that gave us the Fail Mary during the 2012 lockout of officials wants to lock them out again.
The NFL has interrupted the final hours before the start of free agency to engage in labor propaganda as to the union representing the game’s officials.
Adam Schefter of ESPN has tweeted this message: “The NFL held committee meetings last week in Palm Beach and owners were updated on the status of talks with the NFL Referees Association on a new deal to replace the agreement expiring in May — and talks are said to not be in a good place, per sources. One source said ‘frustration is mounting’ on the NFL side and among owners. The league has said in the past that it is is [sic] focused on changes that it believes will improve the performance of the on-field officials while the union wants to preserve the status quo or roll back in some cases the access the league has to work with the officials.”
The last lockout of officials happened in 2012, and it didn’t go well for management. After three weeks of replacement officials (capped by the Fail Mary game), the league caved.
This time around, the league has floated the idea of shifting officiating functions to the league office, which would get very interesting during the cluster of 1:00 p.m. ET games on every given Sunday. Already, the replay systen is overloaded when a bunch of games are being played at once. If 345 Park Avenue will be more actively involved in officiating, the command center could be more stressful than the air traffic control tower at Newark during a government shutdown.
For now, the message the NFL is pushing to fans (through a media outlet it partially owns) seems to be this: The NFL is right, the officials are wrong, and whatever the NFL does if/when a work stoppage happens will work. (Even if it won’t.)
At some point, the NFL Referees Association needs to activate its P.R. machine. Management has been working the media for months, and the league has a knack for getting the average fan to line up behind the oligarchs. Especially when the NFL can activate a media powerhouse it partially owns to pass along its message without scrutiny.
In December 2025, the NFL commenced a P.R. push in advance of the looming expiration of its Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL Referees Association. The effort apparently has gone to the next level.
Via The Athletic, the Competition Committee’s annual meeting in conjunction with the Scouting Combine included a conversation regarding “multiple contingencies” in the event a deal with the NFLRA isn’t reached. One possibility includes “the possibility of centralizing some officiating functions in New York and expanding the use of technology.”
Under that approach, the league would still have officials on the field. They would be supported by enhanced replay capacity from the league office in New York.
At least one source described the discussions to The Athletic as “largely a negotiating ploy by the NFL,” with a belief that a deal will eventually be reached.
When the league and the NFLRA last reached an impasse, in 2012, the NFL’s leverage included a willingness to proceed with replacement officials. The league believed that the replacement officials would perform as effectively as the regular officials. Given the eventual implosion of that temporary experiment (the “Fail Mary” quickly ended the lockout), the NFL needs a better alternative this time around.
Although the league has a longstanding habit of pursuing victory in any and all negotiations, some functions are more important than others. The current approach to officiating has significant flaws, both in the on-field calls and the replay process. A step backward would be unwise, especially in the age of legalized, normalized, and heavily monetized sports betting.
This isn’t the time to pinch pennies. The league should be willing to open its wallet, reinvesting some of its gambling revenue into ensuring a better, more reliable, and more transparent officiating function. The integrity of the game demands it.
Competition Committee co-chairman Rich McKay does not expect there to be a lot of rules changes heading into the 2026 season, but his group is discussing many aspects of the game this week as they prepare for any proposed tweaks to the current rulebook.
One area that has come up in meetings are the rules that govern what is or isn’t a catch. That part of the game came back into focus during the divisional round of the playoffs when a long pass to Bills wide receiver Brandin Cooks was ruled an interception after the ball moved from Cooks’ hands to Broncos safety Ja’Quan McMillian as the wideout hit the ground. Officials ruled that Cooks did not fulfill the rules for possessing the ball before McMillian took it away, which was disputed by former Bills head coach Sean McDermott and others after the Broncos went on to win the game.
It also appeared to be a different ruling than officials came up with on similar plays at other points during the season and McKay said on Sunday that the committee “had a long discussion” related to the catch rules. He also said that the way plays look when subjected to replay has to be part of any conversation about how the rules are written moving forward.
“I think the issue on catch/no catch is that our technology today is just extraordinary,” McKay said, via longtime NFL reporter Mark Maske. “And so the ability to go frame by frame and slow things down is . . . a great solution for a lot of things, but it does present challenges for others. And you need to make sure that your rules as written don’t just match up [with] what’s on the field, but how it’s looked at in replay.”
The lack of a full replay review or full explanation of the ultimate ruling on the field during the Bills-Broncos game didn’t help create confidence that the ruling was the correct one. It’s unclear if a change to how the rules are written would have avoided the ensuing controversy, but the lack of other proposals could lead the committee to devote more time to devising language that would avoid the same kind of conjecture about future plays.
The Scouting Combine marks the unofficial start of rule-change season, with meetings and discussions about potential tweaks to the way the game of pro football is played. The chair of the Competition Committee believes there won’t be many suggested revisions in the latest annual cycle.
Via Judy Battista of NFL Media, Rich McKay said Sunday that he doesn’t expect many proposals for 2026.
“The game is in a good place,” McKay said.
Some would disagree with that assessment. Maybe “good” is the right word for it, because the goal should be “great.”
There’s always room for improvement. True improvement, not airing grievances (like the nutty two-point play from Rams-Seahawks) or acting on petty jealousies (like the 2025 assault on the tush push after the Eagles used it to fuel a Super Bowl win that suddenly isn’t a problem because the Eagles didn’t go back-to-back).
The catch rule went from resolved to chaotic in the latter weeks of the season; work clearly needs to be done there. Also, officiating continues to be an issue, with an obvious necessity to make it better.
Full-time officials. Expanded replay, with more clear and obvious mistakes subject to review. Improved replay, with greater consistency, transparency, and predictability.
If anything, the absence of clutter from stray, self-serving team proposals provides an opportunity to focus on the important things. The hard things. Identifying specific and effective ways to make better the things that need to be made better.
Few would say officiating doesn’t need to be made better. Few would say the replay function doesn’t need to be made better.
As explained during the Super Bowl pregame show, the NFL’s approach to replay is to move slowly. Evolution, not revolution. Even if the making of gradual, steady change adds to the confusion that arises when something isn’t reviewable.
As more and more plays are subject to replay, the shrinking universe of untouchable plays becomes more glaring. At some point, the Competition Committee and/or the owners should say this: “Everything is reviewable, and we’ll carve out a small and specific handful of truly subjective situations that aren’t.”
Here are the things that shouldn’t be reviewable. First, pass interference calls and non-calls (unless they come up with a way to do it far better than the disastrous one-year experiment from 2019). Second, holding and other blocking non-calls away from the point of attack. That’s it.
Basically, whenever clear and obvious evidence is available to overturn an officiating mistake made in real time, it should be embraced and not shunned or delayed.
Then there’s the replay system itself. As the shadowy and unpredictable replay assist system expands, it becomes more and more appropriate to do something we’ve been advocating for years: Put one member of the officiating crew in the booth with the ability to assist the on-field officials in making calls. Not as part of an after-the-fact review, but as part of the initial effort to get it right.
It’s a perfect job for experienced officials who can no longer perform effectively the physical aspects of the job. Their knowledge and experience is wasted when they retire from officiating. Or when a network comes along and offers a skilled referee more money than the NFL will pay.
If, for example, someone like Terry McAulay was the one who spotted the backward pass when reviewing the incomplete pass that was actually a backward pass and a two-point conversion in Rams-Seahawks and called the league to raise the issue, that person should be working not for Prime Video or NBC but for the league.
The core impediment is money. The NFL won’t pay what needs to be paid to make officiating as good as it can be. Full-time officials will cost a lot, especially since the officials would have to be willing to give up their other jobs. Keeping folks like Dean Blandino, McAulay, and Gene Steratore from leaving will cost a lot.
Some would say the cost isn’t justified, because there’s no tangible corresponding benefit. But the benefit comes from the perception that the NFL is doing everything it can to construct the best possible process for getting as many calls right as possible.
Then there’s the problem of transparency. When the word “Orwellian” is used on the league-owned (at the time) TV network to describe the replay process after the controversial overtime interception in the Bills-Broncos playoff game, that’s a fairly clear sign that the current procedure has far too much secrecy. If lesser football operations like the UFL and the ACC can embrace the ability to let fans see how the sausage is made, the NFL needs to put a window into the kitchen, too.
So that’s the message. If there won’t be a lot of rules proposals in the 2026 offseason, it shouldn’t be viewed a redshirt year for the Competition Committee. It should be regarded as an opportunity to make real progress on lingering flaws that could take the NFL from “a good place” and carry it straight to hell in a handbasket.
The NFL’s Competition Committee did not discuss the alternative to the onside kick during their meeting on Sunday at the Scouting Combine, Mark Maske reports.
The dynamic kickoff has essentially made the onside kick irrelevant, with a minuscule success rate, as teams now have to declare an onside kick before the kickoff. (The success rate of the onside kick began falling after the NFL banned running starts on kickoffs in 2018.)
PFT reported earlier this month that the NFL would consider replacing the onside kick with a fourth-and-13 play. (Or a fourth-and-15 or a fourth-and-20 instead of an onside kick.)
“It didn’t get talked about yet,” Rich McKay, the co-chairman of the Competition Committee, said, via Maske. “We’ll see. I do think that the onside kick recovery issue . . . is a real one that you’ve seen the statistics. You’ve seen where the numbers went. And at some point, it would be nice to see those move back to a more historical place. That’s just one person’s view. And you know what one person’s view doesn’t get you? Twenty-four votes.”
McKay was referring to the 24 votes from NFL owners that is needed for a rule change.
Not NFL players. And the league hopes to keep it that way.
Via Judy Battista of NFL Media, the Competition Committee talked about uniforms on Sunday. Specifically, they discussed the fact that the college football cutoffs won’t be coming to the NFL.
It’s sort of strange to think there was even a chance for it. Current rules surely don’t allow players to take scissors to their game pants.
Then again, the league has come a long way from the days when all knees were covered with actual padding. Most knee pads nowadays look like Pop Tarts, if that.
The NFL generally used to exhibit much more OCD regarding uniforms. Mouthpieces weren’t whatever color the players wanted, and they were never crammed into a random hole in the player’s helmet. Some players now have two dangling from their facemasks, with neither in their mouths. And shoe/glove color often seems to be all over the place. (Yellow shoes are a problem; it often looks like a flag is on the field.)
But, hey, at least we know guys like Dion Dawkins won’t be wearing Daisy Dukes. The fact that it was even regarded as a possibility is surprising.
The 2025 offseason featured a vote on banning the tush push, but the proposal put forth by the Packers failed to get the 24 votes needed for the rule to be enacted.
The play continued to be featured by the Eagles and others during the season. The way things like false starts and forward progress were officiated continued to generate chatter, but defenses had some more success stopping the play than they had in the past and Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said in November that it was “becoming tougher and tougher” to run the play after losing a fumble in a loss to the Bears.
That change may have also cooled plans to revive the debate about eliminating the play. Competition Committee co-chairman Rich McKay said on Sunday that he has not seen a proposal from any team similar to the one that fell short last year.
“There’s no team proposal that I’ve seen from it,” McKay said, via longtime NFL reporter Mark Maske. “So I wouldn’t envision it. But you never know.”
Further discussions on possible rule changes by the committee will take place this week and any proposals for the full league will be voted on at league meetings later in the offseason.
