It’s open season on NFL officiating
IRVING, Texas — One of the fun parts of following the NFL are the seasons that take place within the season.
There’s “Desperation Season,” when coaches on the hot seat make drastic moves, such as taking over play-calling on offense.
There’s “Scapegoat Season,” when assistant coaches from underachieving teams get fired instead of the head guys.
And there’s “Whine About The Officiating Season,” which arrived last week as reliably as the tides.
“There’s been a lot of complaining, but I don’t know that it’s any different than any other year,” Giants owner John Mara said Wednesday.
The quality of officiating has been a topic almost every week this season. Fans were irate over penalty calls that marred Browns-49ers in September, Colts-Browns in October, and Cowboys-Seahawks two weeks ago, to pick three notable games. In November, ESPN commentator Robert Griffin III suggested that officals are making calls based on their rooting interests. Last week, Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt pushed a conspiracy theory, saying, “The NFL has something going against me.”
But the complaining reached new decibels on Sunday in Week 14. The most prominent example was the Chiefs during and after their 20-17 loss to the Bills, furious that the officials flagged receiver Kadarius Toney for lining up in the neutral zone to wipe out a game-winning touchdown.
The penalty infuriated almost everyone on the Chiefs, most notably Patrick Mahomes, who cursed about the call in his postgame handshake with Josh Allen, and called it an “elementary school” call in his press conference. Even the normally mildmannered Andy Reid complained about the penalty, calling it “a bit embarrassing for the National Football League for that to take place.”
The Chiefs weren’t the only ones whining on Sunday, though. Myles Garrett called the officiating “a travesty” in the Browns’ win over the Jaguars, saying
“They need to be under the same kind of microscope as we are every single play.”
Even “Monday Night Football” commentator Troy Aikman got fed up with the officiating in this week’s Packers-Giants game, acting incredulous over how long it took officials to view instant replay and make a call.
“This is ridiculous what we’re watching right now,” Aikman said. “I mean, we see something, it takes five seconds. It takes them five minutes.”
The critics aren’t wrong that officials are missing calls, or making bad ones, or affecting game outcomes. The NFL is taking a conciliatory response to the criticism.
“Sometimes I have to put on the hat of Misery Mondays or Tell The Truth Mondays,” NFL executive vice president Troy Vincent said Wednesday at the NFL owners winter meetings. “You want the game to be played on the field, and at times officials may miss a call, but we’re always looking to improve officiating. It’s a constant work in progress.”
Here is what Vincent meant to say, or at least should have:
1. Stop whining.
2. You only notice the bad calls that hurt you, and not the thousands of correct ones or the ones that help you.
3. This happens every year.
4. Stop whining.
“There are calls that I haven’t been thrilled about, either,” Mara said. “But these guys have a brutally tough job to deal with, and they do the best they can. Can we get better? Of course we can get better.”
Garrett at least had a point last week, describing his shoulder as “all red and beat up and looking like I got scratched by a couple of wild feral cats” due to the officials not calling penalties on the Jaguars’ offensive linemen. And Aikman is definitely right that replay decisions can sometimes take agonizingly long, especially when current TV technology allows those of us at home to see the play quicker and clearer.
“I’ve said it many times, they are not perfect, no human being is,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday. “It shows you how difficult it is to do their job.”
The Chiefs, though, were totally out of line in complaining about Toney’s alignment. He was so far into the neutral zone that referee Carl Cheffers noted that Toney was blocking the referee’s view of the ball.
The Chiefs were upset that the officials threw a flag on Toney instead of simply warning him to move back, but this was Toney’s fault, too. At the line of scrimmage, Toney first checked briefly with the ref, then got into his set position. He should have done it the other way around.
“I find it a little ironic, when you say ‘attention on officiating,’ when I think almost everybody has acknowledged that the officials were absolutely correct,” Goodell said. “There was no question about that foul. It was absolutely the right call. If you don’t call that, obviously our officials would’ve been subject to criticism also.”
On Monday, 24 hours after the game, Mahomes and the Chiefs realized that their response was wrong. Mahomes apologized publicly to Allen for not being more sportsmanlike in the postgame handshake, and said he regretted his reactions Sunday. Hopefully, someone also reminded Mahomes that he and the Chiefs have benefitted from questionable calls — say, inside two minutes in last February’s Super Bowl.
Packers president Mark Murphy, a member of the NFL’s competition committee, said he doesn’t sense much support for major changes to the league’s officiating apparatus.
“Not any more than a normal year,” he said.
But the NFL likely will look for ways to incorporate more technology to help officials get calls right, and to speed up the process. Already this year the NFL is assisting officials with some expedited replay reviews from New York City. The league has resisted a full-blown Sky Judge — someone in the review booth with the power to call penalties — but is open to suggestions.
“The technology is so great right now, I know there’s a push for doing things like that and I’m certainly willing to take a look at it,” Mara said.
The officiating isn’t always great, but it’s part of the game and adds to the drama and intrigue surrounding the league.
Still, buckle up — with four weeks of the regular season and four weeks of playoffs still to go, Whine About The Officiating Season is just getting started.