NEW YORK (AP) -The gripes pour in from teams to the NFL office whenever a disputed call happens in a game.
And inevitably Mike Pereira, the league’s vice president of officiating, will hear this refrain: “Why aren’t the officials full-time?”
It’s an issue that comes up any time a questionable call influences a game’s outcome, and this season has certainly had its fair share of those. Pereira understands why people wonder that.
“It just doesn’t sound right,” he said. “It just doesn’t ring right that you have the NFL and you have full-time players and coaches, and you have part-time officials.”
NFL officials are part-time in the sense that most hold other jobs during the week. In the opinion of Pereira’s counterpart in another sport where the group is full-time, Major League Baseball vice president for umpiring Mike Port, it’s more a case of semantics than a reflection of their ability to operate effectively.
“Their folks may be designated as being part-time, but by the nature of the sport, they’re about as full-time as they’re going to get,” Port said.
baseball, umpires are full-time for the simple reason that there are games nearly every day of the week for them to work. NBA referees work 3-4 games a week.
NFL teams, of course, play just once a week.
“Full-time doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be any better,” Pereira said. “Other sports have other problems with their umpires or officials or whatever they are. I’d love to have full-time guys, but give me five games a week to work. That’s the only way you get better is having more repetition, and there’s just not that.”
NFL officials’ work for the league doesn’t stop during the days between games when they’re at their “regular” jobs, which must be flexible enough to allow for the double-duty.
“I think most people think they show up an hour before kickoff, and an hour after kickoff, they’re at the bar having a beer,” Pereira said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s surprising, really, how many hours they put (in).”
Officials are provided laptops by the NFL; after every game, they receive a DVD of the action and are expected to review it. The league then compiles a report on each game, given to officials by noon Tuesday. It may include questions about a particular call, and officials are asked to respond by that night.
0 questions testing their knowledge of obscure rules by the end of each Sunday’s game.
The NFL actually has a more structured process for reviewing games and calls than other leagues because of the infrequency of its games, Port said.
“We do so much more than any other sport does, but that’s not to knock them,” Pereira said. “They’re playing every night. It’s such a completely different model.”
Officials take the first flight out Saturday morning to the site of their game. They meet with their crews for 3-4 hours later that day, then arrive at the stadium 2 1/2 hours before the game Sunday.
Pereira can’t imagine how their weekly routine would be different even if they were full-time employees of the league.
“They’d do what they do now,” Pereira said. “There’s only so much you can do. There’s only so much video to look at.”
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