A Case for NFL Officials: The Blame Game and the Pressure to Get It Right

It’s the morning after, and you feel more tired than you thought. Every noise seems a little louder, every light a little brighter, and the sting still hangs in the air like haze in the morning sun. This leaves you searching for someone to blame. Instead of blaming who you should be, your mind settles on those whose perceived lack of judgment led to the outcome that is still bothering you on this new day. The result is the ire directed at the referees instead of your hometown heroes who blew another game.

Additionally, the nationwide spread of mobile sports betting turns a lot of neutral bystanders into partisan supporters. This advent also places increased scrutiny on the officials as more and more money is being exchanged depending on the result. These two factors combined place the officiating of the NFL in the national spotlight. The job of officiating is inherently touch and go, and this increased scrutiny does nothing to alleviate the concerns.

Now, whether these concerns are founded is the subject of debate, especially given the recent MLB and NBA scandals. Plus, MLB umpire Pat Hoberg was fired for sharing a sports betting account with a friend. Although there was no indication that he bet on MLB games, it still does not reflect the league or him in the best light. Bringing it back to the NFL, where the majority of penalties are non-reviewable, it places extra responsibility on the referees to be right on the initial call.

The easiest solution for this would be to allow replay to overturn blatantly wrong foul calls. As it relates to the teams in this year's Super Bowl, there is partially based chatter about whether the Kansas City Chiefs receive favorable calls from the officials. Now, the majority of this can be attributed to recency bias as they play in a lot of primetime games and are a very good team. This leads to viewers believing that the refs were the primary reason the Chiefs won the game. When it’s just that the standard NFL fan sees them in a lot of close games, and they tend to win cause they have a great team and the best quarterback in the league.

There’s also the other side of that, which is that they do receive favorable calls. However, so do the vast majority of teams and elite players. Officials make mistakes, and often, when making split-second decisions, biases about players' abilities come into effect. For example, on a play where Justin Jefferson is unable to make a catch with borderline 50/50 contact. Is it more likely that he dropped the ball, or the contact was a little bit more than it appeared on the surface? The same thing applies to roughing the quarterback penalties, as the Jets before Aaron Rodgers went at least 26 games without receiving a call in their favor. Then, upon his arrival benefited from a couple of dubious calls, to say the least.

In regards to how this relates to the Chiefs, the fact is that over the past two regular seasons, Josh Allen has received more roughing the passer and unnecessary roughness calls than Patrick Mahomes. This is in stark contrast to the narrative that has developed over the past couple of Chiefs playoff runs. Let's think about this for a second: why in the world would the NFL let their premier franchise, the Dallas Cowboys, flounder as well as the teams in the two biggest markets in the country in New York and Chicago struggle? Just to have them usurped by small market Kansas City. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of business sense.

Now, both things can be true. The first is that officiating is ordinarily a hard job; add in the crowd, level of play, and scrutiny with replay. That makes it down near impossible to perform perfectly. On the other hand, some calls go in favor of the Chiefs just like any team, as well as Mahomes, like any elite player. So what is a solution the league can take to ensure its integrity? The first step the NFL can take is to make any penalty over 10 yards reviewable. The review can be triggered by the booth/official crew or challenged by the opposing team with the caveat that they can only do it once, and if they’re wrong on this penalty challenge, there is an extra five-yard penalty for delay of game. This is to make sure the calls on the field and judgment by the officials still matter, but it also allows for an out in case there is a grossly wrong penalty.

Would that rule change solve anything? Probably not. It would, however, be a small step in the right direction to improve confidence in the officiating. In the meantime, all I can say is before cursing out the refs during the Super Bowl, take a deep breath, try to enjoy the game, and remember there's a reason to root for both teams competing for ultimate glory.