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Three words fans have used to describe NFL officiating of 2023 regular-season games on social media, spewing their anger at the people in stripes.
In most cases, the vitriol is misguided or misdirected, with those enraged better served looking at their respective teams and their failures instead.
But this season officiating issues have grown so large that they’re impossible to ignore. While human error will always be a reality, the number of mistakes needs to dwindle significantly for America’s most popular sport.
In prime-time games alone this year, the NFL has had the following calls (or noncalls) result in controversy:
Week 1: Kansas City Chiefs tackle Jawaan Taylor’s repeated alignment issues at the line of scrimmage. Week 1: The New York Jets’ Chazz Surratt wasn’t called for tripping on a game-winning punt return touchdown against the Buffalo Bills.Week 4: The Jets’ Sauce Gardner was called for pass interference on the Chiefs’ Marquez Valdes-Scantling.Week 6: A blatant pass interference by the Bills’ Taron Johnson was ignored on the final play vs. the Giants.Week 7: The Miami Dolphins were called for 10 penalties, and the Philadelphia Eagles were flagged for none in a Sunday Night Football win.Week 13: 19 penalties for 257 yards were called in the Dallas Cowboys–Seattle Seahawks game.Week 13: Valdes-Scantling gets run over but no DPI was called in the Green Bay Packers’ win over the Chiefs.Week 16: The Baltimore Ravens were called for a safety after Lamar Jackson was tripped by an official.Week 17: Brad Allen’s crew botched the Detroit Lions’ eligible players against the Cowboys on a two-point conversion.
The list goes on, and none of those were the Indianapolis Colts–Cleveland Browns debacle, which essentially cost the former a playoff spot. The same is true of the Bills-Chiefs spectacle, where Kadarius Toney was correctly called for being offsides, but only after the infraction was ignored throughout the game.
And that leads into the biggest complaint among NFL personnel that spoke to on the condition of anonymity about the officiating.
Leading up to the playoffs, four league sources shared their biggest frustrations with the officials and the NFL’s handling of them. They also answered the question about one thing they’d do if given ultimate power to make a change to the rules.
Finally, former NFL rules analyst for and former NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino responded to each thought with his own insight. Let’s dive in.
