I am glad to see someone advocating for this. I am sure the Cardinals have been screwed by calls in favor of te bigger market/more prestigious teams.

The officials need to be younger and in better shape and better able to keep up with the players.

They need to spend the week watching game film and getting more training so there will be more consistency in all the calls and the officials keep their heads when stuff happens like the end of the playoff game this year.

Officials who have bad games need to be benched with an adjustment in their pay for the week they are benched.

If GODell is really interested in the "integrity of the game" - which he isn't as demonstrated by the whole fiasco and disparate treatment of Bengals and Steelers in the playoff game - he will push for full time officials.

I would think that all of the smaller market teams would be in favor of bringing the NFL into the 21st century in this area of the game.

(03-25-2016, 04:31 PM)bengals67 Wrote: I am glad to see someone advocating for this. I am sure the Cardinals have been screwed by calls in favor of te bigger market/more prestigious teams.

The officials need to be younger and in better shape and better able to keep up with the players.

They need to spend the week watching game film and getting more training so there will be more consistency in all the calls and the officials keep their heads when stuff happens like the end of the playoff game this year.

Officials who have bad games need to be benched with an adjustment in their pay for the week they are benched.

If GODell is really interested in the "integrity of the game" - which he isn't as demonstrated by the whole fiasco and disparate treatment of Bengals and Steelers in the playoff game - he will push for full time officials.

I would think that all of the smaller market teams would be in favor of bringing the NFL into the 21st century in this area of the game.

Sounds good to me. Makes sense as well.

Usually i am not for changes in the game, but changes with the refs cannot be a bad thing most likely.

They are bad enough. With this change the refs would HAVE to take their job seriously and do their homework.

No more favoritism and make up calls damn it.

Yes, it is long past time for the NFL officials to be full time employees. It's not like the NFL can't easily afford it, as they pretty much have a license to print money.. Of all the reasons that '67 stated, the one that jumps out the strongest, is accountability.

Good for him for speaking up.

The draft, coaching, preparing, working out, game planning, spending our hard earned money ,etc...... is a total waste of our time ,if the NFL does not correct the bias and unprofessional execution of the referrees duties in these games.

All the money we (as fans) spend, we deserve better from the NFL.

The NFL officiating should be setting the standard for integrity in professional sports.

just my 2c

Nothing about being a full time ref is going to guarantee less bias, but I am in favor of them being full time. The NFL isn't exactly like Friday night football at the local school yard where the math teacher can stand in as the ref and their calls aren't scrutinized by millions of fans.
But we don't live in a perfect world and can't really expect perfection from refs.. Consistency would be nice though.

I respect Arians. As obnoxious as he is (and he can be pretty obnoxious) he is a good coach and makes a lot of common sense points. I totally agree with him here. With billions of dollars invested in the game, officiating should not be a part time job. The league needs to respect itself and pony-up. It's not gonna break the effin' bank!

No reason a company making $20 billion in profits every year, can't afford full-time officials. Doing that and allowing coaches to use challenge flags on penalties would go a long ways towards ensuring games are decided by players and coaches, not officials.

(03-25-2016, 05:57 PM)Yojimbo Wrote: No reason a company making $20 billion in profits every year, can't afford full-time officials. Doing that and allowing coaches to use challenge flags on penalties would go a long ways towards ensuring games are decided by players and coaches, not officials.

I truly believe that the stinkin refs caused us to lose that playoff game.Had we won that I am totally convinced we would be superbowl champs.We have gotten screwed so so many times by the refs for years and years.I am so sick of it.They give teams like the stinkin stoolers all the breaks as well as the stinkin pats and the way john asshole harbaugh works the refs every game I would love to knock that butt hole out.Its time to have full time refs and allow teams to indeed throw the red flag if they disagree with a call.Give all teams 3 red flags per game and allow the cameras to sort it out.Enough of CROOKED refs that are seriously getting RICH to sway games the way they like.You will never convince me OTHERWISE that the fix is always in and our team always gets to worse of it.TIME TO THROW DOWN ON THIS AND DO NOT LET UP.ALLOW OUR VOICE TO BE HEARD!!!!!

Here is the thing with making ref's full time. There are 17 weeks in the regular season, 5 weeks of pre-season. That's 22 weeks and then the post season. So during a week without any byes, there would need to be 16 crews to work the games for the week. So lets say for each game the ref's need to be at the stadium for 5 hours. Arriving before the game starts, and staying til the stadium is cleared. That is ONLY 110 hours of work for the entire year. OK, so lets pay them for their travel time as well. At most we would be doubling the time, as you can get pretty much anywhere in the continental US in 5 hours. So now we're at 220 hours for the entire year.

A full time job, 40 hours a week, for 50 weeks, (lets get 2 weeks vacation), comes to 2000 hours a year worked. So if we take the 220 hours away for their actual WORK, and travel time, that would leave them 1780 hours that they have to find something to do. So lets have them practice, watch film, and study the rule book. Let's say that takes them 500 hours a year. Then what? How much film study and reading of the rules can they do? I guess they could work out to stay in shape, or possibly practice on flag throwing?

Point being there simply isn't enough work for them to be full time. They could re-watch every single NFL game for the entire year, multiple times over.

It's a prestigious job already. Not sure what they paid, but I'm sure it's pretty decent. There is some celebtiry status that comes with it, and if you're good a possible career in the booth when you're finished on the field. Make them accountable, and have the bad ref's lose their cushy jobs. That I think would have a more positive impact then trying to find some way for these guys to spend 1200 plus hours a year.

(03-25-2016, 11:29 PM)Shepdawg Wrote: Here is the thing with making ref's full time.  There are 17 weeks in the regular season, 5 weeks of pre-season.  That's 22 weeks and then the post season.  So during a week without any byes, there would need to be 16 crews to work the games for the week.  So lets say for each game the ref's need to be at the stadium for 5 hours.  Arriving before the game starts, and staying til the stadium is cleared. That is ONLY 110 hours of work for the entire year.  OK, so lets pay them for their travel time as well.  At most we would be doubling the time, as you can get pretty much anywhere in the continental US in 5 hours.  So now we're at 220 hours for the entire year.  

A full time job, 40 hours a week, for 50 weeks, (lets get 2 weeks vacation), comes to 2000 hours a year worked.  So if we take the 220 hours away for their actual WORK, and travel time, that would leave them 1780 hours that they have to find something to do.  So lets have them practice, watch film, and study the rule book.  Let's say that takes them 500 hours a year. Then what?  How much film study and reading of the rules can they do?  I guess they could work out to stay in shape, or possibly practice on flag throwing?

Point being there simply isn't enough work for them to be full time.  They could re-watch every single NFL game for the entire year, multiple times over.

It's a prestigious job already.  Not sure what they paid, but I'm sure it's pretty decent. There is some celebtiry status that comes with it, and if you're good a possible career in the booth when you're finished on the field.   Make them accountable, and have the bad ref's lose their cushy jobs.  That I think would have a more positive impact then trying to find some way for these guys to spend 1200 plus hours a year.

Floor is around $78k a year and average is over $170k. If you're already paying them that much money there is really no reason to not make it a full time job even if it requires a good sized pay increase. They do a lot of different things during the week, but a lot of that is up to the individual so some strict guidelines about how much/what film they should watch should be set up that increases their time in the film room. 

Here's an article about everyone's favorite ref Ed. It shows there is plenty he does and even more he could be doing if he was full time.

http://static.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/clayton_john/1248329.html

(03-26-2016, 02:23 AM)leonardfan40 Wrote: Floor is around $78k a year and average is over $170k. If you're already paying them that much money there is really no reason to not make it a full time job even if it requires a good sized pay increase. They do a lot of different things during the week, but a lot of that is up to the individual so some strict guidelines about how much/what film they should watch should be set up that increases their time in the film room. 

Here's an article about everyone's favorite ref Ed. It shows there is plenty he does and even more he could be doing if he was full time.

http://static.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/clayton_john/1248329.html

That was a pretty decent article. If they're working 30 hours per week IN SEASON just on administrivia, phone calls, reviewing rules, etc., they could put in the same amount of time OFF SEASON.

With a slight pay raise the ref's would make $100K to $200K per year. Which one of us would turn down that kind of scratch if offered?

(03-26-2016, 12:18 PM)PV Bengal Wrote: That was a pretty decent article. If they're working 30 hours per week IN SEASON just on administrivia, phone calls, reviewing rules, etc., they could put in the same amount of time OFF SEASON.

With a slight pay raise the ref's would make $100K to $200K per year. Which one of us would turn down that kind of scratch if offered.........

(continuing the thought)
.........to watch NFL games from the field?

I talked about this a lot last year (in actual space, not cyber space) and I think it is part of the reason as the year wore on I just cared less and less about NFL football: only pro sport without professionals calling the game, and it is a joke. Coaching, managing salary cap, conditioning, drafting, free agent signings - everything teams and individuals do gets torpedoed by the bush league refs in practically every game every given Sunday of the NFL.

(03-26-2016, 04:09 PM)xxlt Wrote: I talked about this a lot last year (in actual space, not cyber space) and I think it is part of the reason as the year wore on I just cared less and less about NFL football: only pro sport without professionals calling the game, and it is a joke. Coaching, managing salary cap, conditioning, drafting, free agent signings - everything teams and individuals do gets torpedoed by the bush league refs in practically every game every given Sunday of the NFL.

spot on . Great post.

NFL is the No Integrity League  (NIL) run by the supremely PC GODel.

The part time refs and how they have screwed former players with lack of health benefits and pension ( the guys who made the league before all the big salaries) shows it is the NIL not the NFL.

That's great but it should have been Marvin after the Stealer debacle.

On a completely "unrelated" note the over/under on how many games the Cardinals lose in 2016 due to terrible calls by officials just went from 0.5 to 3.5

(03-25-2016, 11:29 PM)Shepdawg Wrote: Here is the thing with making ref's full time.  There are 17 weeks in the regular season, 5 weeks of pre-season.  That's 22 weeks and then the post season.  So during a week without any byes, there would need to be 16 crews to work the games for the week.  So lets say for each game the ref's need to be at the stadium for 5 hours.  Arriving before the game starts, and staying til the stadium is cleared. That is ONLY 110 hours of work for the entire year.  OK, so lets pay them for their travel time as well.  At most we would be doubling the time, as you can get pretty much anywhere in the continental US in 5 hours.  So now we're at 220 hours for the entire year.  

A full time job, 40 hours a week, for 50 weeks, (lets get 2 weeks vacation), comes to 2000 hours a year worked.  So if we take the 220 hours away for their actual WORK, and travel time, that would leave them 1780 hours that they have to find something to do.  So lets have them practice, watch film, and study the rule book.  Let's say that takes them 500 hours a year. Then what?  How much film study and reading of the rules can they do?  I guess they could work out to stay in shape, or possibly practice on flag throwing?

Point being there simply isn't enough work for them to be full time.  They could re-watch every single NFL game for the entire year, multiple times over.

It's a prestigious job already.  Not sure what they paid, but I'm sure it's pretty decent. There is some celebtiry status that comes with it, and if you're good a possible career in the booth when you're finished on the field.   Make them accountable, and have the bad ref's lose their cushy jobs.  That I think would have a more positive impact then trying to find some way for these guys to spend 1200 plus hours a year.

Working doesn't have to be just during the season, they aren't players and they can be working for the league in a different capacity during the off season.

Remember when we had "replacement officials" and the debacle of a year that was? As Bengals fans we probably overlooked it because we did seem to have a better than average year and many of the bad calls went our way (lol). The calls made were hilarious, though.

Teachers are "fulltime" but they don't teach all year (well, most of them). Referees need training, they should all be on the same page. I like to tell my fellow developers I shouldn't be able to tell Mike's code from Erin's code, it needs to be consistent and organized. We shouldn't be able to tell when Ed Hochli is reffing.

Part of offseason or OTA programs could be refs sitting with each team individually and describing what a damn catch is/etc. Maybe they already do stuff like that, but I doubt it?

(03-28-2016, 12:01 PM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: Remember when we had "replacement officials" and the debacle of a year that was? As Bengals fans we probably overlooked it because we did seem to have a better than average year and many of the bad calls went our way (lol). The calls made were hilarious, though.

Teachers are "fulltime" but they don't teach all year (well, most of them). Referees need training, they should all be on the same page. I like to tell my fellow developers I shouldn't be able to tell Mike's code from Erin's code, it needs to be consistent and organized. We shouldn't be able to tell when Ed Hochli is reffing.

Part of offseason or OTA programs could be refs sitting with each team individually and describing what a damn catch is/etc. Maybe they already do stuff like that, but I doubt it?

Great points.

(03-25-2016, 05:57 PM)Yojimbo Wrote: No reason a company making $20 billion in profits every year, can't afford full-time officials. Doing that and allowing coaches to use challenge flags on penalties would go a long ways towards ensuring games are decided by players and coaches, not officials.

Every play or decision should be subject to review.  There are so many cameras, and so many angles, it doesn't make sense to not get it right.