During the week of Super Bowl LX in February, commissioner Roger Goodell said he was “so amazed at how good our officials are.”
But as the NFL and the NFL Referees Association continue to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, the tone from Goodell and others in the league office has changed.
Goodell said in his Tuesday press conference that talks between the two sides have not progressed in the way he hoped.
“We obviously have obligations to our fans, to everybody in the National Football League to play, and we will be prepared to play. And so, we are taking appropriate steps to be ready,” Goodell said, in reference to the league hiring replacement officials. “But we’re also keeping focused on negotiations. So, we’d like to get a negotiated deal, and we certainly are focused on that.”
When it comes to those negotiations with the NFLRA, as NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller noted earlier on Tuesday, the league is focused on improving accountability and performance. Goodell was asked if having full-time officials could improve officiating and if there is buy-in from ownership to make that happen.
“Our No. 1 objective is to improve officiating,” Goodell said. “We think we owe that to the game, we think we owe it to our players, coaches, and our fans. So, that’s what we’re focused on. We did — in the last agreement before COVID — have an opportunity to hire some officials full-time. I think it was about a dozen. We didn’t see any difference in their performance by being full-time. But there are benefits to being able to work with officials.
“And one of the issues we have in part of our negotiations on accountability and performance, is when an official is not performing at the highest level or a level we think is acceptable at the NFL, is to be able to work with them, and to train them, and to give them more opportunities to get better, ultimately. And we can’t do that in some cases — there’s a blackout period, for example. We can’t touch them until May, and be able to have those opportunities. So, those are the types of things that we’re looking to do to try to make sure we’re improving officiating and improving the performance.”
Goodell added that while he’s been “very positive” about the game’s officials, there is still room for improvement.
“And we’ve been very clear about that,” Goodell said. “We know that we can take officials that aren’t performing at that level and either work with them to get better or find other officials that can do it.”
