NFL officials will be graded as crews rather than individuals in an effort to reduce errors, the league decided Tuesday.
“This is a huge change,” said NFL director of officiating Mike Pereira at owners meetings Tuesday. “We are changing the philosophy from being the best officials to the best officiating.”
Playoff officials had been chosen based on a point system that resulted in all-star crews rather than keeping the seven-man crews intact after a regular season of working together. Now the eight best crews will advance to the postseason and will be seeded one through eight with the top crew working the Super Bowl.
“To us, the real benefit is the performance we’re going to get in games one through 256, the regular season,” Pereira said. “Groups will now work a lot harder together and will learn each other’s weaknesses and strengths and be able to cover for each other. If a person makes a mistake, the whole crew will be responsible.”
Pereira anticipates more teamwork in spotting fouls and overruling calls from officials who have better views. Each of the seven officials is assigned specific areas of play. Although that never has precluded overlap, it didn’t encourage it.
“Quite frankly, on the individual-based system, there is the tendency to back away because in controversy, you don’t benefit,” Pereira said.
Pereira said the change “absolutely” had nothing to do with the mistake at the end of the San Francisco 49ers-New York Giants wild-card game when an all-star crew failed to call a pass interference penalty on a botched field-goal attempt that would have given the Giants a second chance to win in a 39-38 49ers victory.
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said the failure of that crew to follow established communication guidelines was the biggest officiating disappointment during his tenure. But Pereira and Larry Upson, director of officiating operations, said they have been contemplating the change since they were hired two years ago and “absolutely” would have turned to the new system regardless of the Giants-49ers game. No vote by owners was required for the switch.
Parts of the old system will remain intact. The 26 officials who will be in their first or second years in the 2003 season still will not be allowed to work the postseason. That’s no more than two in the 17 crews. They will be replaced by more seasoned officials based on individual grades that still will be kept. Super Bowl officials need five years’ experience, so Pereira admits a crew could remain a partial all-star crew.
“If I end up with only four from a crew, we’re a long ways ahead of where we were before,” Pereira said.
“There would be more cohesion,” said Detroit coach Steve Mariucci, who was coaching the 49ers in the controversial Giants game.
Notes: Bears owners Ed and Virginia McCaskey are notably absent from this year’s meetings because Ed is recuperating from surgery. “He’s doing very well and they hated to miss this,” Bears board chairman and son Michael McCaskey said.
The Bears have been in contact with the New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints and New York Jets–all teams with two No. 1 draft choices–to discuss contingency plans to trade down from their No. 4 spot. The talks are routine predraft conversation, but general manager Jerry Angelo said Tuesday he thinks at least one of the teams will get serious about pursuing either defensive end Terrell Suggs of Arizona State or Kansas State cornerback Terence Newman because the Patriots, Saints and Jets all have defensive head coaches.
Suggs’ Bears personal workout is scheduled for Wednesday morning. Marshall quarterback Byron Leftwich will throw April 7 when he is expected to be fully recovered from a cracked leg bone. The Bears also have a one-on-one interview scheduled with Cal quarterback Kyle Boller.
– No momentum for either overtime or playoff expansion changes was sensed on the eve of Wednesday’s votes. The two-possession overtime proposal is “not anybody’s No. 1 agenda,” said competition committee co-chairman Rich McKay of Tampa Bay on Tuesday. He said while there is sentiment for 14 playoff teams, the prevailing notion is to give the 12-team format a second year’s look in the new eight-division system.
