Why NFL Must Reach Deal with Refs Before Week 1

This time last year, fans were still breathing a sigh of relief that a new CBA had been agreed upon and that the NFL season had been saved from a lockout.

This season, the league is having a difficult time reaching another agreement.

The NFL and its Referees Association have yet to reach a new agreement, which led to replacement officials being used during Week 1 of the preseason.

Weeks 2 and 3 may also feature replacement officials on fields during preseason action.

According to an article by Mike Freeman on CBSSports.com, the league is already preparing for the response to its use of replacement officials.

Freeman’s article contains passages from the memo that the league recently sent to teams, in which it tells them not to talk about the referee lockout. The NFL is seemingly preparing for a negative reaction to the replacement officials.

And that’s just from the teams.

But what about the fans?

For one, they’ve already recently endured an offseason that left the upcoming NFL season in limbo until late in the summer. Now, there’s uncertainty as to who will be officiating the games this year and whether replacement officials are prepared to step in after just three months of training.

It’s easy to complain about referees, even when instant replay clearly shows that the call should go against your team.

But what if the use of replacement officials leads to incorrect calls deciding the outcomes of games?

By not reaching an agreement on a new deal, as of yet, upcoming games will now feature referees even more so under a microscope than previous officials, which could lead to even more criticism from both fans and players.

An article by Chris Mortensen and Adam Schefter on ESPN.com contains a quote from Adam Podlesh of the Chicago Bears in which he points out that no matter how well the officials do during the preseason, it is not guaranteed to translate to the regular season. He says:

"

Everybody says the preseason is at one speed and once you get up to regular season the speed picks up and it goes to the next level. That is one thing that basically all these refs that are officiating our games haven’t experienced. It’s an unwritten chapter right now in officiating. You don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s the concern for the players: are they going to be able to keep up with the speed of the game and are they going to make the right calls that are going to make the players feel safe?

"

This year seemingly gives a new meaning to the phrase, “It’s preseason for the refs, too.”

Mortensen and Schefter’s article also mentions a source’s estimate that a new agreement may not be in place until Week 3 of the regular season.

An agreement by Week 3 is better than no agreement at all. But the league cannot afford to have a blown call cost teams in Weeks 1 and 2 and risk having any of them eventually miss the playoffs by one or two games.

An article by Phillip B. Wilson on IndyStar.com contains quotes from Mark Baltz, the treasurer of the NFL Referees Association, in which he talks about a pass-interference call in the Indianapolis Colts vs. St. Louis Rams preseason game. Baltz felt that the ref incorrectly called pass interference on a play and that he also hesitated for a few seconds before even throwing the flag.

This is the type of instance that the NFL cannot afford to witness this season so as to avoid the backlash from fans and players alike.

As we’ve seen so far during the preseason, game officials can be replaced. 

Officials with NFL-game experience cannot.