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...each pay an average of two billion dollars a year to broadcast NFL games. With millions of dollars on the line for each game, teams, television networks, and NFL executives give their best effort to produce the best football possible. The officiating should be no exception. If referees were full-time, they could watch film, attend practices, and devote their energies exclusively to football, which would minimize bad calls and misrulings...
...course, one might ask what specific activities a full-time referee could engage in that a part-time referee could not. For one, in addition to watching film and attending meetings with other referees, full-time referees would have the time to attend practices of teams other than those that they would be officiating over the course of a week. This would allow officials to watch and participate in game-speed situations more than once a week. Professional football coach and long time advocate of the full-time referee, Bud Grant writes, in Always on Sunday, “They...
...upward trend in overturned calls with the instant replay feature demonstrates the necessity of such full-time officiating. In 1999, there were 133 challenges, and 42.8 percent of challenged calls were overturned, compared to 229 challenges in 2008, of which 51 percent were reversed. The increase in challenges shows a decrease in confidence in officiating, and the increase of the rate of reversal might also suggest an actual decrease in the quality of officiating due to the use of the instant reply as a crutch rather than a tool...
...physical condition to keep up with them. It is impossible to measure how many missed calls were the result of officials who were unable to keep up with the players. However, officials would certainly be better able to stay on top of their exercise if officiating were their full-time job rather than having to sit behind a desk for a week before being asked to officiate a professional football game...
...Even with instant replays, the referees still got it wrong, as official Peter Morelli later admitted, though the ruling ultimately decided the outcome of that game. Also, many Seahawks fans can attest to there being inconsistent officiating even in the biggest of games, as Superbowl XL demonstrates. Granted, a full-time referee will also make bad calls from time to time, but it is in the best interest of the game to make those occurrences as infrequent as possible...