A How-to Guide to Fixing NFL Officiating

NFL officiating is broken. The rules are complex and contradictory, the challenge system is behind the times, and Commissioner Roger Goodell's halfhearted anti-concussion initiatives make justice a moving target.

Fans who've watched the NFL for decades find themselves unable to tell in-bounds from out-of-bounds, a fumble from possession, or a touchdown from an incomplete pass.

In some ways, the NFL is a victim of its own success. With millions of homes transfixed by the replayable HDTV action, and drowning in an ocean of advanced NFL analysis, even casual fans can catch referees making mistakes, right as they make them.

How can the NFL fix officiating? Goodell suggested the league could make as many as 10 of its referees full time. But paying referees to give up their day jobs won't change the way games are called.

Consistency

Here are the NFL's 2011 Official Playing Rules and Casebook. It's 123 pages of rules and definitions, followed by 121 pages of case studies and interpretation notes. Go ahead, give it a read. It starts off with exciting stuff like field number shape and size, but gets eye-wateringly complex from there.

No wonder many NFL refs are lawyers on the weekdays.

Fans need to be able to understand the game. What's legal one week can't be illegal the next. What's allowed to slide in the first quarter can't be flagged in the fourth quarter, and vice versa. Holding can't be called twice as often by one referee than another, as Jerome Boger did compared to Al Riveron in 2011.

When fans see an obvious touchdown, it needs to be ruled a touchdown.

This maddening inconsistency partly results from the labyrinthine rulebook, and all the conflicting interpretations and case studies.

Take the offsides rule. Unlike hockey and soccer, football's offsides rule is straightforward: the defensive player cannot be on the wrong side of the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped. A defensive player also can't touch an offensive player before the ball is snapped (encroachment), or line up in the neutral zone before the ball is snapped.

Incredibly, Rule 7, Section 4 takes three whole pages to describe this and corresponding false start rules. That section's Article 4, though, slathers gray area all over the main rule's black-and-white text:

"It is a Neutral Zone Infraction when: (a) a defender moves beyond the neutral zone prior to the snap and is parallel to or beyond an offensive lineman, with an unabated path to the quarterback or kicker, even though no contact is made with a blocker; officials are to blow their whistles immediately."

For fans' entire lives, a quick-witted lineman has had the ability to jump offsides and recover—and a quick-witted quarterback has been able to get the ball snapped while the lineman is offsides, resulting in a risk-free attempt at a game-breaking touchdown.

Increasingly—but inconsistently—referees are defaulting to 7.4.4a and blowing the play dead whenever a lineman jumps. This not only takes away an exciting game of cat-and-mouse, it undermines the plain text of the rule.

If that's how the rule is going to be enforced, that's what the rule should be: "a defender may not move beyond the neutral zone before the ball is snapped," period. That's several pages' worth of clear-as-mud lawyering ripped out.

There are opportunities like this throughout the rulebook. It needs to be streamlined wherever possible, removing the burden of on-the-fly interpretation of dozens of clauses, exceptions and "approved rulings."

Officiating will be much more consistent, and fans much more sure the game's being called by the rules on the books, not the whims of the officials.

Accountability

How does the NFL grade officials? By reviewing the video of every play.

How do fans in the stadium know to boo awful calls? They review the video boards after every questionable play.

How do fans at home make YouTube highlight reels of officials' bad calls? They review the video of every play.

Detecting a theme? Every questionable play must be reviewed, and every play must be reviewable.

There is zero excuse for a stadium full of fans, players, coaches and officials all well aware a call was just blown, and a nation of millions watching and re-watching the truth in HD, but somebody's out of challenges or the play is "not reviewable" per some arcane clause deep in the 244-page rulebook.

There is no call on the field that should be "not reviewable," including penalties. Even judgment calls like holding and pass interference have an objective standard; if the video shows the infraction didn't meet that standard, the penalty should be reversed. Likewise, if review shows a play-changing penalty occurred, it should be assessed.

It isn't 1986 anymore; there are no excuses. Replay officials have access to a dizzying array of HD video streams, and powerful purpose-built DVR setups to review them. Replays no longer slow the game down as they did. Need proof? Look no further than college football, where the NCAA replay-official model has been effective and consistent.

Keep the "coach challenge" mechanism as a failsafe against the replay official missing something. But allow coaches to challenge as often as they need to; it's not like officials are limited to only making two mistakes per half.

Transparency

In an town-hall-style meeting with Detroit Lions fans, Goodell was asked about the bizarre decisions handed down against the Lions throughout the season. The Week 16 game against the New Orleans Saints, during which an unprecedented three offensive pass interference flags were thrown on Lions wide receiver Nate Burleson, had occurred just prior to the meeting.

Goodell dismissed the fans' concerns, claiming officials get "99 percent" of all calls right. After the Lions' playoff rematch with the Saints was poorly officiated enough to draw an apology from the league, Goodell admitted to Texans and Ravens fans the league is looking to improve officials' consistency.

This fits into the NFL's recent M.O.: brush off popular comments and complaints, only to tacitly admit problems by addressing them midweek, or in the offseason.

In 2010, former Vikings head coach Brad Childress was fined $35,000 for publicly critiquing the crew that worked his team's most recent game—and revealing that NFL VP of Officiating Carl Johnson had personally called him to apologize for a blown video review.

Why the stonewalling? What does it gain?

Officials are human, and make mistakes. Fans can't ever expect 100 percent accuracy from any official, let alone all officials. But what's the harm in admitting mistakes? Why the obvious charade of infallibility? It does the opposite of what's intended: it inspires distrust in the league and officials.

We know the NFL reviews every call the referees make, and grades them on accuracy. We know the best-graded refs work the playoffs and Super Bowl, and the worst refs don't get to be refs anymore.

So, publish the grades.

By making the refs' performance grades public, fans will be able to see exactly what a good crew does well, and what a struggling crew does poorly. They'll be able to connect the dots between their perception of a poorly officiated game, and the reality of how well the officials really did.

The NFL thinks that would open up a Pandora's Box of referee abuse, but just the opposite is true: As it is, after every game you find fans of both teams convinced the refs were blind or biased. By publishing the grades, the grumblings of the masses will be quieted.

The NFL has an incredibly vast, specific and far-reaching Media Access Policy. It mandates exactly how long and how often all players and coaches must be made available to media for quotes and questions, including after every game.

Why not include the referee?

When MLB umpire Jim Joyce robbed former Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga of a perfect game, Joyce spoke to the media afterwards and was profoundly apologetic. When he came out of the tunnel to work the next game, Joyce was moved to tears by Tigers fans applauding him for his honesty.

Wouldn't NFL referees making short post-game statements, and answering questions from both teams' media, inspire similar understanding?

Leadership

The NFL is proud to set the standard for sports leagues all over the world. Revenue sharing, labor peace, competitive equity and broadcast ratings are unmatched.

Nothing less than the best of the best is acceptable when it comes to players, coaches, executives, stadiums, training facilities and fan accommodations; why can't the NFL take the initiative in officiating?

Commissioner Goodell needs to meet this issue head-on. Simply making NFL refs full-time won't solve the problem. The security of a full-time job might even inspire a sense of "tenure," as with some baseball umpires.

The NFL needs its on-field rules enforcement to match the quality of its on-field product...before controversy over blown calls ruins the quality of its on-field product. NFL officials need more consistency, accountability and transparency—now.