How serious is NFL’s officiating problem?

One week after the NFL saw the Seattle Seahawks given a win they didn’t deserve when the back judge in their game against the Lions failed to flag the ‘Hawks for illegally batting a ball out of the end zone and gave Seattle the ball on its own 20 instead of giving it back to Detroit at the Seattle one-yard line with three downs to win the game, and Cleveland’s Tramon Williams was incorrectly flagged for being offsides on a San Diego Chargers 39-yard field goal attempt to win the game that went wide, allowing the Chargers to try again from 34 yards out and win the game, NFL officials made another serious mistake on Monday.

The league has acknowledged that the side judge in the Steelers 24-20 win over San Diego incorrectly allowed 18 seconds to be

run off the clock on the Steelers final game-winning drive that concluded with a Le’veon Bell touchdown with no time on the clock.

This error most likely didn’t affect the outcome of the game, but there is no certainty in that. And it is still an obvious mistake that had nothing to do with judgment. It was simply a failure by the official in question to do his job.

Commissioner Roger Goodell and his fellow owners spend a great deal of time talking about their priority to protect the integrity of the game, but many players, coaches and owners around the league are becoming more and more frustrated by the quality of the officiating and concerned about what is being done to make it better.

It can’t be a good thing for the NFL when each weekend’s games are being followed by official acknowledgements from the league office about mistakes that were made by officials.