NFL Reportedly Ready to Hire Replacement Refs, Latest on NFLRA CBA Talks Ahead of Looming Deadline

Replacement referees could be coming back to the NFL.

ESPN's Kevin Seifert and Kalyn Kahler reported the latest on negotiations between the league and the NFL Referees Association. In essence, pessimism about reaching a deal has led to team owners giving permission to staffers to bring aboard replacement officials "in the coming weeks."

"NFL owners are 'alarmed' by the state of negotiations with the NFL Referees Association and have authorized staff members to begin hiring and onboarding replacement officials in the coming weeks, league sources said Sunday at the start of the league meetings," the ESPN duo reported.

"The NFL began compiling a list of college-level officials to recruit earlier this month, and owners are expected this week to approve a sweeping set of replay enhancements to support replacement officials in preseason and regular-season games. A separate league source said that training of the new replacement officials will begin May 1."

The league's current collective bargaining agreement with the NFLRA expires May 31, per Seifert and Kahler.

A source told Seifert and Kahler that "the opportunity to reach an agreement with our current union becomes a bigger challenge, just from simple economics" if an agreement isn't reached by the time replacement officials start training on May 1.

The countdown to reach a deal surely would be on by then with there being just a month from the CBA expiring.

Tom Pelissero of NFL Network provided an outlook on the negotiations from the league's point of view.

"The NFL has offered its game officials a six-year labor deal with a 6.45 percent annual growth rate in compensation, while the NFLRA is insisting on 10 percent plus $2.5 million for marketing fees the league regards as worthless, sources say. The union also continues to resist changes the NFL is insisting upon, including shortening the 'dark period' after the Super Bowl, deploying underperforming officials to spring leagues for extra reps and ending a seniority-based system for playoff assignments. 'We want to pay for performance,' source said."

Pelissero also added:

"The NFL has made a proposal to make some officials full-time, but have met 'staunch resistance' from the NFLRA, source said. In essence, from the league's standpoint, the union wants officials to make substantially more money without any substantive changes to their jobs or hours and with a system that rewards seniority, not performance."

The league and NFLRA got to the negotiating table last Wednesday in Florida, but they both got up quickly.

"We gave them a counter proposal and they rejected it. We asked them to give us a response, and they refused as their lead negotiator Larry Ferazani said he was not authorized to do so at that point. They then got up and left," NFLRA executive director Scott Green said, per Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated.

The NFL had its take on the matter, per Breer, saying the NFLRA "refused to engage in ways to improve officiating performance. The plan was for two days of negotiations, but talks ended after the morning session."

Long story short, this is very ugly. The only ray of positive hope is the fact that there is still time to get something done before May 31, but that's really it. Otherwise, it seems both sides are far apart with no tangible evidence that they can hammer things out.

Perhaps that changes, but there's certainly a possibility the league goes to replacement refs as it did for the first three weeks of the 2012 NFL season. As fans can remember, that three-week stretch did not go well for refs, punctuated by the infamous Fail Mary game. A few days later, the NFL and NFLRA reached an agreement on the new CBA in time for Week 4. The two sides signed a new deal in 2019.

A league source told ESPN that the NFL made a mistake waiting until July to prepare for replacement officials as things went south in negotiations. This time around, it appears the league is looking to prepare earlier and get replacement refs more of a run-up time if needed for the season, which starts on Sept. 9.