NFL is “insistent upon” improved performance from officials

Less than two months ago, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell boasted about game officials. The league is now ready to roast them.

“I’m amazed at how good our officials are,” Goodell said during his Super Bowl-week press conference.

On Tuesday, NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller sang a different tune when discussing the ongoing labor battle with the NFL Referees Association.

“This is an opportunity for us to improve the state of our officiating,” Miller told reporters at the NFL’s annual meeting. “There needs to be accountability measures, there needs to be performance measures, and that’s what our negotiating posture has been. The dead period that keeps us from talking to officials from the end of the season until May 15, the probationary period that doesn’t permit us enough time to work with officials to help them improve performance — or remove them if necessary — or the ability to get the best-performing officials on the field as the playoffs continue.

“Again, the owners were consistent in saying, we’re more than happy to pay for performance. . . . [T]his was consistent throughout the course of the discussions over the last couple of days. But what they are insistent upon — insistent upon — is that the performance of the officials and the accountability for their performance has to improve. And that’s where we are in these negotiations and that’s exactly where we’re going to stay.”

It’s a delicate balance for the league. The best way to improve performance is to make all officials full-time, year-round employees, and to pay them accordingly.

Wherever this goes, it feels like the NFL is already determined to lock the officials out, rely on expanded replay, and play Russian roulette with the integrity of the game by relying on glorified amateurs to perform the critically important game-day function of knowing, applying, and enforcing the rules — while also protecting the players.