Fail Mary 2 is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality.
The NFL has implemented a plan to have replacement officials ready to go — with active assistance from the officiating department — if talks on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement fail to result in a new deal before the start of the season. Obviously, the games must go on. Even if the officiating (which is already far from perfect) gets a lot worse.
During a Wednesday conference call with reporters, NFL P.R. boss Jeff Miller provided an update regarding the talks, through the lens of his expertise. Via Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports, the league and the NFLRA also commenced on Wednesday the first of a planned two-day negotiating session. Jones reports that the talks ended after the morning session on the first day.
“We’re willing to sit at the negotiating table and work this through,” Miller said during Wednesday’s conference call, per Jones. “We want to get to a deal with the officials. We’ve said that repeatedly. We’ve worked on negotiations with them for going on two years at this point. We believe that there’s an opportunity here to improve our officiating and improve the performance and improve the accountability around it. And we will pay for performance. That’s not the issue. And we’ll continue to drive that point with our officials. And hopefully they’ll be willing to engage with us on those terms increasingly as we get closer to the expiration.
“We want the best officials on the field and we want greater accountability and greater performance and that’s what we’re going to continue to drive towards.”
(They want the best officials on the field, even if that means tolerating some of the worst until the best take the NFL’s best offer.)
Miller also explained that the league hopes to have greater access to (i.e., more work time from) officials when they’re otherwise not working their part-time NFL jobs.
“The officials are engaged in a part-time job,” Miller said. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be able to find time to work with the ones who need some assistance, education and training to improve. We deserve that. The fans deserve that. The players and coaches deserve that, and they’re held to account just like everybody else is. And officials should be in that same bucket. To the extent that they need opportunities for improvement, we believe that there should be an opportunity to help them improve in their performance.”
That’s a fine line for the league to walk. You want improvement? Make them full-time employees!
But that would be expensive. Not only would all officials need to be paid like full-time employees, they’d have to be paid enough to get them to give up their other jobs. Jobs that don’t entail constant grading and scrutiny and the risk of having a bad day at the office turn into a five o’clock pink slip.
Through it all, the NFLRA isn’t saying anything. Which is a huge mistake. The league has the bullhorn. The league has direct relationship with all of the networks. The league owns a piece of Skydance, which now owns Paramount. The league owns a much bigger piece of ESPN.
P.R. is a huge part of this fight. The NFL is winning in a blowout. Even if the NFL’s best arguments could backfire by getting more and more fans and media to insist that the league break open the piggybank and make the zebras full-time employees.
