My, my, so much noise coming out of the zoo last weekend, all directed at the zebras.
At the highest levels of pro and college football, it was open season on officials. To hear the outraged coaches and players, we were led to believe this most cherished sport was being overseen by squinty-eyed gnomes who haven’t cracked a rule book since Johnny Unitas was in black high-top baby booties.
There are those who would disagree. The divide between the two sides is deep and eternal. No bridge will ever span the gulf.
You’ve got it all wrong, screams the player, the coach, the fan who has witnessed a close call shipwreck a game or an entire season.
So do you, respond the folks in authority who plead that they are flawed just like the teams they judge. But they are trying, really hard, to keep their human failings to a minimum.
Not hard enough, the critics shoot back.
The riffs on the refs last week were exceptional because they emanated from some of football’s most notable figures.
Last season’s MVP, Cam Newton, demanded and received a conversation with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell over the number of hits he took — illegal to his eye — that went uncalled. Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman labeled the officiating in last week’s game against New Orleans, “egregious.” Washington cornerback Josh Norman was not nearly so erudite.
“He (expletive),” Norman said of field judge Brad Freeman, after being turned inside out by Cincinnati’s A.J. Green and being called for five penalties last week in London.
Such words are not to be taken lightly, for they challenge football right down to its core of credibility. As Barry Mano, founder of the 22,000-member National Association of Sports Officials says, “There has to be believability of outcome, otherwise we turn into the WWE (pro wrestling’s parent).”
The carping wasn’t limited to the professionals. This was FSU’s Jimbo Fisher, following a questionable chop block call that nullified a big run in the Seminoles loss to Clemson on Saturday (the ACC eventually fined the coach $20,000 for his news conference rant):
“It was ridiculous. It was not a chop. You hold coaches accountable. You hold players accountable. Hold the damn officials accountable. It is garbage. And then to call another penalty on the sideline (for protesting the call) is even more garbage. It’s cowardly, gutless, and wrong.”
What’s the take-away from all this?
For one thing, those who wear or have worn stripes to a game would tell you that they are slopping over in accountability.
This was Mano, a long-time college basketball referee who in in 1980 formed the NASO, whose members come from every level of every sport:
“This drives me nuts when people talk about accountability. We’ve been accountable our whole damn lives. Jimbo says they got to hold officials accountable. What do you think they’ve been doing for the past 15-20 years? Every single thing we do, we’re rated on. The ratings are used for assignments, for hiring and firing. Are you kidding me? Accountable? (Insert dismissive chuckle here).”
The official’s work is autopsied constantly, and not just in the postgame media interviews. College conferences and the NFL both grade their crews weekly and hand out the plum postseason assignments as rewards to those who grade the highest.
In the NFL, the process of officials’ review has both formal and informal avenues, said Rich McKay, the Falcons’ president and long-time member of the NFL Competition Committee. Postgame, teams can submit a form requesting the league’s head of officiating, Dean Blandino, and his staff review up to 10 plays. Or a coach can just pick up the phone and insert his objections directly into Blandino’s ear.
Additionally, after the league reviews every game from the preceding week, it releases a video to the teams and officials showing missed calls and points of emphasis in order to try to get the two sides to understand each other a little better.
Accountability among NFL officials may be found in the numbers. There has been significant turnover in the ranks lately — 26 of the 124 officials on the 2016 NFL roster have been added in just the past three seasons. “That,” said McKay, “is driven by a little more by quality assurance (than by simple natural attrition).”
Officiating in the NFL is not considered a full-time job, but the refs are well paid for the scrutiny they endure. The collective bargaining settlement in 2012 steps up the average salary from $173,000 in 2013 to $205,000 by the end of the agreement in 2019.
What, though, is really accomplished by all the noise directed toward them?
During his long NFL coaching career (1981-2003 with the Broncos, Giants and Falcons), Dan Reeves came to believe that nothing he said or did ultimately effected how officials called a game. He even stopped going through the motions of filing the postgame review requests to the league. “I didn’t feel it was doing any good, and if you complained about it maybe it was hurting you,” he said.
And he certainly didn’t want his players to air their gripes.
“They got to keep their mouths shut. Players shouldn’t be saying anything — if anybody is going to be saying anything it should come from the organization, it shouldn’t be coming from the players,” Reeves said.
In Newton’s case, he had a point. The NFL said so, in agreeing that one hit last week down around his knees while in the pocket should have been called.
But in the end, what really changes? Not the result, certainly. And no guarantee the officials suddenly will throw a blanket of protection around Newton, especially when he strays from the pocket.
Bob Whitfield, the former Falcons offensive lineman turned local high school official, has a unique, two-sided view of the player-official relationship. He calls it a cat-and-mouse game, between the ref trying to keep the game under control and the player exploring the limits of what he can get away with. Better that it’s all done in quiet, he figures.
“Until you become an official you don’t understand the stress levels are equal for both parties,” Whitfield said. “It’s fine as long as there is a mutual level of respect. You start talking trash to another human being (an official), try to ruffle his feathers, now he might be paying more attention to you.” Unwanted attention, in some cases, he said.
And where does this leave the fan, who wonders whether his favorite sport is being competently officiated?
McKay certainly understands the emotions that are roiled when a controversial call tilts against your team. His father, John, was a prominent college and NFL coach. He’s a team executive with plenty of skin in the game. So, he wasn’t surprised by the volume of complaints last week.
However, he said, “I’m disappointed when all of a sudden the broad brush is painted that, ‘oh, that means officiating isn’t very good (in general).’”
“No, that one call may have been wrong,” McKay said. “We have what 40,000 plays in a year? If we’re going to have six plays a year that are really big plays that they don’t get right, boy, that’s a high standard.”
Gerald Austin reffed in the NFL for 25 years. He is the supervisor of officials for Conference USA. He analyzes officiating for ESPN. And he really can’t care about what you or Cam Newton or Jimbo Fisher think about his craft.
“Officials are officiating to be good,” he said. “You go out there wanting to be the best you can be and if you miss a call, it bothers you.
“If I had a feel for public opinion it’s that we’re not as good as they’d want us to be. You start the game, and they want you to be perfect.
“You go out and make your first call and half the people are angry. You make the second call and everyone is angry. So, quit worrying about whether they’re angry. Just go do your job.”
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