With up to 16 games played each week, the NFL maintains 17 full officiating crews. Still, almost all of them have other jobs.
It’s something we’ve known for years. It nevertheless becomes jarring to see the list of names, crews, officiating roles, and other employment laid out for all 17 crews by FootballZebras.com.
All 17 referees, the leader of each crew, have other jobs. Brad Allen (10th season as a referee) is a non-profit CEO. Tra Blake (second season) is a software quality assurance manager. Clete Blakeman (14th season) is an attorney. Carl Cheffers (16th season) is a sales manager. Land Clark (fourth season) is a chief building official. Alan Eck (first season) is a tax manager. Adrian Hill (fifth season) is an aerospace software engineer. Shawn Hochuli (sixth season) is a financial advisor.
John Hussey (ninth season) is a sales representative. Alex Kemp (sixth season) is an insurance agent. Clay Martin (sixth season) is a high-school administrator and basketball coach. Scott Novak (fifth season) is a sales manager. Brad Rodgers (fifth season) is a college professor. Shawn Smith (sixth season) works in finance. Ron Torbert (10th season) is an attorney. Bill Vinovich (15th season) is a C.P.A. Craig Wrolstad (10th season) is an athletic director.
The vast majority of NFL officials have other jobs. Scrolling through the list, we see rancher, real estate agent, banker, teacher, CEO, firefighter, engineer, federal agent, pharmaceutical sales, agribusiness, law-firm manager, and many more.
It shouldn’t be that way. The stakes are currently very high for the NFL, and getting higher. For everyone else with an important connection to the game, it’s a full-time job, with no other professional commitments or distractions.
That would require a greater financial commitment from the league, both to fully compensate the officials for having them work all year long — and to persuade them to give up their other jobs and go all in with the NFL.
To maximize the accuracy of calls and (perhaps as importantly) to create the impression that the NFL is trying to maximize the accuracy of calls, the change is needed.
During the season, all officials would gather in a centrally-located home office (Dallas, Kansas City, etc.) for a full day or two of meetings to review important calls from the prior weekend, with the goal of ensuring consistency among all crews and addressing the latest trends and habits of the various teams.
In the offseason, there would be exercise sessions, more meetings to review anything and everything from the prior season, discussions regarding potential input for rule changes, simulations, participation in OTA and minicamp practices, and whatever else could be devised to ensure that, when football season comes around, the officials will be ready to go.
Through it all, the NFL duties would never be something an official finds time to address in whatever extra time the official can carve out between primary work duties and family obligations. It would not be a hobby/passion that grew into a side hustle that becomes one of many plates that must be kept spinning from December through January.
It would be, it should be, the full professional focus of every official. All year long.
Eventually, it will be. There will be something that forces the NFL to finally peel off the dollar bills necessary to make it happen. A scandal, a controversy, a bad call in a big spot that forces the NFL to do better when it comes to making calls.
And then, after a year or two of the NFL using full-time officials, most will wonder how the NFL held things together for so long with officials who weren’t fully committed to one of the most important functions in the sport.
