NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell yesterday "admitted the obvious" -- that the NFL "has an officiating and rule book crisis on its hands," according to Bart Hubbuch of the N.Y. POST. Goodell, at the league's owners meeting in Irving, Texas, said, "Our commitment is to do everything reasonable to make sure that we improve officiating. I’m asking the competition committee to look at various aspects of our officiating to see what we can do to improve it." Hubbuch notes Goodell "didn’t get specific." But he did say that the league’s rule book "could be streamlined and that the NFL plans to increase oversight using improved technology in hopes of quelling the public outcry." Goodell: "We all recognize that officials are going to make mistakes. What we need to do is try to avoid those mistakes as much as possible, train them differently, improve the quality of the officiating and use technology to help them when a mistake does occur" (N.Y. POST, 12/3). NFL VP/Officiating Dean Blandino, appearing yesterday on "PFT Live," said that he "doesn’t believe officiating is any different than it has been in past years" and that the league’s review of roughly 26,000 plays through Week 11 "have found 4.5 correctable mistakes by officials per game." Blandino added that increased scrutiny of the officials has "led to greater focus when things go wrong." Blandino: "Technology has been great for us, it’s been a great training tool, but it’s also allowed for more people to have more outlets to critique officiating. ... Our mistake rate isn’t any different than it’s been in years past, but we have had some high profile situations and people have more avenues to discuss those things" (PROFOOTBALLTALK.com, 12/2).
IT'S TIME FOR FULL TIME: USA TODAY's Jarrett Bell notes the NFL maintains that the "efficiency of officials this season is consistent with previous years, roughly a 95% accuracy rate." But it "sure doesn’t feel that way." Bell: "Sure, nobody’s perfect." In a sport that is "increasingly faster, the officials will miss calls." Sometimes, they "won’t be positioned for the best angle." Yet too often this season, the miscues "have had to do with the administration of the rules." More than ever, the NFL "needs full-time referees." Bell: "It's time." The league "has warmed to the idea." However, Goodell indicated that there are "issues that need to be resolved with the referees' union for such a plan to come to fruition" (USA TODAY, 12/3). ESPN's Tony Kornheiser said, "The technology is better than the humans on the field, and the humans are intimidated by the fact that the calls can be reversed. The most reasonable thing you can do is hire full-time officials. The NFL makes so much money they can afford to do it, and basketball and baseball do it.” ESPN's Michael Wilbon said the league “has to pay officials to be full time, (but) they don't care enough to do that.” ESPN's Steve Young: "What’s better than ever are camera angles. Anything that happens on the field, they immediately go and give you an angle of every play. So they’re trying to officiate to digital perfection. It’s inhuman, can't do it." He added, "Until they take that holistic view of who the officials are as on field partners of ours, full-time partners, they are going to always struggle because they’re going to look for digital perfection and they’re not going to get close to it and it's always going to be a problem” (“PTI,” ESPN, 12/2).
