End of the First Quarter: 25 NFL officiating stories, Part 3

Labor standoffs bring replacement officials. It did not end well.

The first collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the certified union of its officials was set to expire in 2001.

But even under that first deal in 1994, the NFL did reach out to some college officials to start to assemble a roster of backup officials in case of a labor issue. Basically, the NFL’s stance was that they would lock out officials if negotiations were to break down so that officials would not have the leverage to strike at an inconvenient time. Replacements weren’t necessary in 1994, but one of those officials they reached out to was Western Athletic Conference referee Mike Pereira.

In 2001, Pereira was now having to assemble a crew of replacement officials, after being the head of the NFL’s officiating department for just a few months. There was a protracted negotiation over salaries and fees and the NFL dropped the lockout hammer in the middle of the preseason.

The lockout continued into Week 1 of the 2001 regular season. Pereira’s first week as the leader of the officiating department — along with his deputies Ronnie Baynes, Jim Daopoulos, Nelly Dunn, Al Hines, and Larry Upson — had him wearing his uniform on the field. Daopolos worked his second game of the week in Denver on Monday night with Pereira in the booth. It was Sept. 10, 2001.

The terrorist attack had already commenced before Pereira and Daopoulos could fly back to New York.

Neither side in the labor dispute was in the mood to negotiate, but a breakout group consisting of Bill Carollo and Jeff Bergman for the union and Steelers owner Dan Rooney and NFL executive Jeff Pash for the league hammered out a deal. About 67 percent of officials voted to approve the deal, but that was enough to end the stalemate. After postponing the Week 2 schedule, the renumbered Week 2 games had the union officials back on the field.

The replacement gambit largely worked, and an outside force ultimately was the impetus for ending the lockout. It would not work a second time.

After renegotiating that lukewarm collective bargaining agreement two years early, the next contract expiration was in 2012.

The major points this time around — which vary depending on who you talk to — were salary, retirement benefits, and having a “practice squad” of officials, much like the teams had with the players. The two sides were a wide gulf apart, and so another group of officials were recruited to be the NFL’s contingency.

The 2012 class of replacements were not the best available from the college ranks, with officials in Division I largely opting out as a measure of solidarity and to preserve their opportunity for legitimate advancement.

The replacement officials were substandard at best, which was no fault of their own. They were recruited to work NFL games before they were ready, and for many seeing the NFL out of their reach, accepted the offer.

While there were noticeable errors, the crews lumbered through four weeks of games. There is no need to recount what happened that Monday night.

Following the Fail Mary, the NFL was motivated to resolve the impasse quickly. Less than 72 hours after the botched call, referee Gene Steratore brought his crew on the field to a standing ovation. It was a brief honeymoon, but fans soon found out that officials are not replaceable.

The NFL and the union approved the next CBA a year early. That contract expires in May 2026, so in the next year we should find out whether there will be labor peace or not.

NFL moves the umpire, keeps crews of seven

In 2010, the NFL moved the umpire from the defensive backfield (lined up with the linebackers) to the offensive backfield opposite the referee. This move was done for the sake of safety. The year before the switch, the NFL documented the umpire getting knocked to the ground over 200 times during the season. The move was for the umpire’s safety (and I imagine giving receivers a cleaner crossing route).

The NCAA kept the umpire at the in its traditional position and added an eighth official, the center judge, to the offensive backfield. The NFL tried several experiments over several preseasons to see if there was a good place on the field for an eighth NFL official. There were two back judges, three officials in the offensive backfield, one sideline had three officials just to name a few experiments.

The NFL could never find a place for the eighth official. The position would either clog up the field or didn’t provide marked recovery. Since 2020, the NFL hasn’t tried any eighth official experiments and with the implementation of replay assist, a proxy eighth official is in the replay booth and not on the field.

The uncalled pass interference heard around the world

It was the most controversial call in the last 25 years. Late in the 2018 NFC Championship game, the officiating crew failed to call a critical pass interference foul when Rams defender Nickell Robey-Coleman hit receiver Tommylee Lewis early before Drew Brees’s pass arrived. The Saints could have potentially run down the clock and kicked a game-winning field goal, but had to kick early, which allowed the Rams to tie the game and send the game into overtime, which the Rams ultimately won.

The officials received death threats, fans tried to smash the Rule 17 square peg into a round hole, and pass interference was reviewable for one (failed) season.

Rules protecting QB

NFL rules have favored the offense since the 1970s (and before). In the last 25 years, there have been (slightly) exaggerated claims that the Competition Committee has made defense illegal.

Baseball had its “dead-ball era” from 1900-1920, and it could be said the NFL’s dead-ball era was the succeeding 20 years. Many games had a single scoring play, some even less. Earl “Shorty” Ray, the league’s technical advisor on the rules and officiating — the commissioner retained direct supervision over officials — began to innovate rules that promoted offense and scoring.

Beyond that, there has been an increase in rules to protect the quarterback since the mid-’90s. The rule that prohibited low contact to a quarterback in the pocket was only enforced, before 2006, if the defender had a direct line to the quarterback. In the first game of the 2008 season, Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard hit Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the knee. Brady tore his MCL and ACL, and was out for the entire season. (Carl Cheffers was in his first game as referee and did not throw a flag, which he was downgraded for.)

Rules were continually appended until a change in 2018 left defenders frustrated, and the league couldn’t keep up with their vocal opposition. At times it was difficult to officiate, but there were very specific tactics that the referee had to look for.

The owners are the ones who approve rule changes. The owners have a substantial investment in the quarterback position. Therefore, the rules have reflected the owners’ desire to protect their substantial investment.

As defensive rushers tackled quarterbacks, they pleaded that they could not avoid landing on the quarterback. Rules were put in place that made it illegal to drop the full body weight on the tackle, as these “pancaking” tackles injured several passers. Defenders could not drive through the quarterback, which was to address a pass rusher from placing the helmet against the chest which cracked ribs upon going to the ground.

Whatever could be said to try to dial back those rules would be futile. Once a player-safety rule is in place, it is impossible to walk it back.

Representation matters

At the dawn of this century, football was just barely moving the needle from male exclusive to male dominant, with the exception of a few women who inherited ownership such as Violet Bidwill Wolfner and Georgia Frontiere. Lesley Visser was a pioneer in the journalism arena in 1976, as print and broadcast very slowly opened any new doors. In 1997, Amy Trask had ascended to CEO of the Oakland Raiders to become the first woman in front-office leadership.

Officiating came along slowly, and it was the labor impasse of 2012 that put a woman on the field. Shannon Eastin, a replacement official while the NFL locked out the union officials, was technically first, with line-of-scrimmage official Sarah Thomas becoming the first permanent female official in 2015. Also, the position of head linesman was ungendered by the NFL in 2017, renamed the down judge and the rulebook started to remove male pronouns referring to officials.

Thomas’s first season was a bit rocky, but recovered to earn a Super Bowl assignment in her 5th season. Since then, the league has hired three more women to work on the field and several in the replay booth. In 2024, history was made when line judge Robin DeLorenzo and field judge Karina Tovar covered the same sideline in a game.

It did not come easy, and continues to present challenges, as documentarian Shantel Hansen chronicled in the film Her Turf, shadowing three women in officiating after Thomas was hired in the NFL.

Other firsts in NFL officiating included Cuban-born Alberto Riveron becoming the first Hispanic official in 2004 and Lo van Pham, born in Laos, as the first Asian official in 2022.

Additionally, the NFL was the league that broke the color barrier in North American sports officiating with the hiring of Burl Toler in 1965. Fast forward to the 1987 season, Johnny Grier was the first Black referee to lead a Super Bowl crew. This was a long path of progress from the 1920s and 1930s, when the lists of collegiate officials in the Spaulding Football Guide had a separate section of Black officials under a pervasive and now-derogatory term of the era.

In the 100th NFL season, the Super Bowl officiating crew for the first time had more minority representation than any other. It was the 4th game in league history at that point to have a “majority minority crew.” The statistic we cited at the time was that “out of the approximately 1,100 officials who have worked throughout the league’s 100-year history, there have only been 74 black officials, and 35 of those 74 were active officials in the 2019 season.”

Eventually, it became a moot point to count those games as crews just happened to be composed of more Black officials and not because of any specific measure to do so, something that wasn’t possible in previous years. On a Monday night game in 2020, the NFL moved two officials from other crews to create history: every official on the first was an African-American for the first time.

Since then, the league has had an all-Black crew assigned to 7 other regular season games. Each time there are comments about this being a “political stunt,” but since it has been occurring at least once a year, the league does not point it out anymore. But that goes to a larger point. It doesn’t have an impact on those who are vocal, but for those who participate and to those who witness it, it gives them a chance to be a part of history. For them, representation matters.