The NFL Needs Its Referees

Do you remember last year when we were dealing with an NFL lockout and everyone in the media was making a big deal about it? We were freaking out over the prospect of not having NFL games to watch simply because the NFL owners weren’t willing to keep paying players the exorbitant amounts that they were paying them and players weren’t willing to take a pay cut. That situation resolved itself before it cost the NFL any regular season games. Now this year, the NFL faces another personnel issue, not with the players but with the refs. The NFL’s regular refs have supposedly threatened to strike if the NFL does not meet their demands, many of which have to do with their pension funds.  Now I know a lot of fans will cry out saying, “the refs suck they don’t deserve to get paid anyways” but hear me out. The NFL is preparing to face a season without its regular referees. I say they need to make sure to get the normal refs back in stripes by day one of the regular season.

I am a former referee and I know how difficult it can be to go from level to level within the game. Even just going from refereeing second grade games to eighth grade games can feel completely different. The NFL is asking their replacement refs to make an even bigger jump than that. The NFL is looking at refs from all levels other than the one most well equipped to make the jump up to the league. They are looking at refs from the Arena League and small college conferences but are not looking to hire referees from the BCS conferences. While I understand that the NFL has a relationship with the BCS conferences that would make it awkward to poach their referees, I find it hard to believe that the NFL actually thinks that small college and Arena League refs are going to be able to handle the atmosphere of an NFL stadium. Off the top of your head, can you name a single Arena League player who’s had significant NFL success? I didn’t think so, and you expect me to believe that an Arena League ref is going to be any more successful in the NFL than an arena league player?

Look, I’m not saying that the NFL needs to waffle before the refs or give them everything that they have asked for, but I am saying that if the league wants to continue putting out a top notch product they need their guys out on the field. There are so many different rules even just between the college game and the NFL, not to mention arena football and the NFL, which share very little resemblance to each other. It can be described as nothing less than arrogant to believe that the NFL can just pick any referees they want and train them to ref the NFL game. Even if we weren’t facing a decline in the quality of the game if forced to deal with second tier refs , would you really want to go a whole season without being able to make fun of any professional football player with smaller arms than referee Ed Hochuli?