NFL Reportedly Considering Massive Change For Referees

NFL referees conversing

Getty Image / Leslie Plaza Johnson


Some big changes could be coming soon for NFL referees.

As it stands, NFL officials are currently part-time workers who tend to have other employment when they aren’t officiating games.

For some time now, there have been calls for the league to change that.

The belief among many fans is that making refs full-time employees so they can completely focus on the job would improve performance. They certainly can’t make very many more questionable calls over the course of a season.

Now it appears the NFL could make that change.

According to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, he is hearing from a source that the idea is gaining some traction.

Florio explained the reasoning for why the NFL’s refs should be full-time employees.

Their full work duties should be devoted to knowing the rulebook and how to properly and consistently apply it. When not studying the rulebook, they should be determining how to properly use the rules via simulations. When not doing that, they should be working out. When not doing that, they should be officiating offseason workouts and training-camp practices.

With how frequently rules and the league’s enforcement emphasis changes, full-time employment is likely what the league needs to get the best out of their officials.

Continued focus on this job could help refs prevent mistakes like the one we early in the year with Jacoby Brissett’s double pump spike against the Panthers against Panthers where the flag was erroneously picked up or the disastrous officiating we saw at the end of the Commanders-Giants game in Week 15.

The NFL should be doing whatever they need to in order to make sure their refs are getting it as right as possible on a weekly basis and this seems like it would be a step in the right direction.

John Vaccaro avatar
Associate Editor/Writer at BroBible. An ASU Sun Devil who covers NFL, MMA, College Basketball, and resides in Phoenix, Arizona.