Dear NFL…….

From the Sidelines

175

Ladies and Gentlemen of the NFL I hope this year finds you all well and having a good year so far. As a serious fan of your league, I enjoy the fine product you put on the field. There is no doubt they are all great athletes, and most of them represent your league very well. The growth you are having in Europe and South America is astounding and can only grow and improve the sport as it expands into other venues. I hope you continue to be the best sport in the world to watch!

The reason for this letter, though, is to alert you to a problem that I think you are aware you have. For all the greatness of the athletes, it seems your officiating in the last two years has been less than stellar…..ok, let’s call it what it is: terrible! Too many of your games are decided by ridiculous and often incorrect calls by officials. What makes this so egregious is the fact that we can all see on television what the men on the field miss…..even with replay!

Are you kidding me? How is that possible? With all the modern technology and all the visibility, at least 10% of calls are wrong, missed, or worse yet, take too long on replay to get right, which sometimes is questionable. Let’s look at the recent Chiefs/Texans game. It was a terrible look for the Referee, Clay Martin. The referee missed by a mile on two roughing-the-passer penalties! Wasn’t even close!

It was so bad that even the announcing crew, especially Troy Aikman, was appalled. This once again starts the rumor that the NFL is in the tank for the Chiefs! Being a former official, I do my best to stand up for the officials, I know how hard it is, and when I hear people make this claim, I usually sluff it off…..however, I have paid more attention to games this year, and I must admit, I think there is a case to be made for this claim! What is going on?

Please tell me that is not true, and you better have proof because what people see and what you claim may be miles apart. I am sure you know about all this, so my question is what are you going to do about it? If you don’t, will you kill the golden goose that is the NFL?

If I may, I would like to suggest some ways to improve officiating for your crews. One would be to make all 15-yard penalties reviewable. I feel this would have changed the rulings on the Texans, even though there was a small attempt to say Referee Martin was correct. Yeah, tell us our lying eyes were wrong!

Another way would be to get officials more correctly positioned. How many times have we all seen officials trailing the ball at least 5 yards behind the runner and then missing the spot by two feet? Way too many! Also, put the referee always on the ARM side of the quarterback, and not 10-15 yards behind him. That is why so many attempted passes have to be reviewed to see if it is a fumble or not, the referee is out of position.

I think the biggest thing that would help would be to teach your officials to be more aggressive, teach them to trust their instincts more, oh, and quit listening to the ridiculous claim from fans and announcers that” THAT’S A LATE FLAG!” Hell, they’re all late! You can’t throw a flag until you see a penalty!

I was taught this simple lesson years ago by an old Big East official: LET THE MIND DIGEST WHAT THE EYES HAVE SEEN! In other words take that extra time to make sure you saw what you saw…..this eliminates a lot of mistakes! One other thing, and I don’t want to hit this too hard, Ramon George, the head of officials, should be changed. He has been the head since 2016, and it is time for a change. Nothing personal, but since he has been there, (he came from conference USA.) things seem to be deteriorating. Sometimes, change is good!

As a final note, I think you have some really good Referees in the NFL; Bill Vinovich, Brad Rogers, and Alex Kemp I think are excellent at controlling games, and when there is a penalty, they get on with it, they don’t normally need a 10-minute conference with the rest of the crew to figure it out! It is a tough job, and they do it very well. Maybe the others should watch how they run a game and learn from them. No, they aren’t perfect, but they are consistent, and that is important. 

Thank You for your time, and I hope you may consider some of my suggestions. I love the game of football, and I want to see it grow on all levels. I know the toughest job on the field is officiating the game, and it deserves the best people you can find. Let’s look things over in the off-season and fix the only real glaring error your league has, please!

That’s the way I see it….from the sidelines!

Respectfully, Mike Stegall