Replacement officials – not so welcome experiment by the league – NFL Feature
The National Football League (NFL) has experimented many changes in the league since its new boss Roger Goodell took over its reign but although the office has been successful in achieving desired results most of times its some experiences were not so popular,
as the one the office tried out this season (2012) out of a compulsive need, and that was use of replacement referees to officiate season games given its regular officials were on a holdout because of a payout controversy.
Obviously, the league did well to let the season progress through initial few weeks without any interruption and problem, but the officials with not so much exposure of the pro league proved a disastrous move.
A number of officials became direct targets of criticism from coaches, managers and players alike over their poor judgement ability that sometimes allowed unnecessary penalties to opposition teams. As a matter of fact, a game’s result became controversial
and was settled in the post-game review by the league office, without being changed.
On other occasions, they were accused of allowing players to get away with some serious fouls, and at some going too favourable to one side, to an extent that they were labelled holding a bias against other side.
So the initial few weeks proved to be very colourful as far as officiating was concerned. The idea of using replacement officials became so controversial that still many team managers and coaches find it difficult to get over with some of the decisions taken
by those officials.
Although the league did not have an alternative to replace the protesting regular officials over the demand of a pay raise, the scheme of makeshift officiating was not successful at all.
Yet this has many lessons for the league office to learn. One the most important is that the office should know that officiating is the most crucial part of the league as far as credibility of each game and each season is concerned.
It is essentials that the office always maintains high standards of officiating otherwise it will face as much criticism as it did this year. At the end, the loss is graver because it had a dire impact on the standards of the league. If they fail, the teams,
their managers and other officials will not trust the league office. They will rather accuse it of being biased.
So it is a time for office to think of a long-term solution to problems like protests of regular officials, or their unavailability due to any other reason.
One solution can be that the office maintains a panel of reserve officials, which can consist of retired officials, or volunteers from other resources who are willing to serve the league at the time of a need.
There can be some other solutions too that the league office can think of, and seeking to enter into consultation with relevant circles should be a wise step for the office.
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