The NFL made an unexpected announcement on Friday morning as to an arrangement that could, in theory, spread.
“The NFL and the Big 12 Conference are entering into a new strategic partnership, working side by side on officiating development, global football initiatives, emerging technology, analytics and flag football expansion, with a goal of growing the game for generations to come,” the league announced on social media, via Tom Pelissero of NFL Media.
“The focus on officiating is notable,” Pelissero added. “Big 12 officials will gain access to NFL clinics, weekly teaching tapes and advanced accountability tools. Joint training and evaluation programs will expand, and both organizations will collaborate to identify officials with pro potential.”
And there it is. An effort to improve officiating by giving extra training to officials currently on the Big 12 payroll. For the NFL, the price is right.
While it’s a step in the right direction, it underscores the reality that plenty more steps are needed in order to make NFL officiating as good as it can be.
This year, it seems to have gotten worse. Maybe that’s just a perception, fueled by the ongoing spread of legalized gambling.
As more and more people bet, more and more people are impacted by bad calls that affect games — from the winner and the loser to the covering the spread to the array of crack-cocaine prop bets that can have one bad call keep a player from cashing his yardage over.
Regardless of whether there are, or aren’t, an uptick in bad calls, the bad calls make bigger waves than ever before. And the NFL prefers to keep its head low and its mouth shut, waiting for the next inevitable bright, shiny object to turn the page on controversy.
Thirteen years ago, they tried to tell us that replacement officials would be every bit as good as the regular, locked-out officials. They clearly weren’t.
Currently, they continue to cling to the notion that part-time officials are every bit as good as full-time officials. They clearly aren’t.
Which means that, while the vast majority of people who collect a paycheck from the NFL or one of its teams are full-time employees, the people in these critical positions aren’t.
And, for the NFL, the price is right.
