{"id":1549711,"date":"2023-02-10T08:34:51","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T13:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/?p=1549711"},"modified":"2023-02-10T08:34:52","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T13:34:52","slug":"nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Goodell Gives Defiant Answer on State of NFL Referees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>One of the biggest storylines of the 2022\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/nfl\/\">NFL<\/a>\u00a0season is how bad the NFL referees were. From\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/nfl-referee-carl-cheffers-explains-how-chris-jones-roughing-the-passer-while-holding-ball-after-terrible-chiefs-raiders-call\/\">phantom roughing the passer<\/a>\u00a0penalties to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/nfl-referee-ron-torbert-offers-explanations-rigged-bengals-chiefs-afc-championship\/\">missed calls in the Championship games<\/a>, hardly a week went by without a bad call factoring into the outcome of a game. Being an NFL referee is a difficult job, and the truth is, they get it right more than they get it wrong. But don\u2019t tell NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell his zebras are doing a bad job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-roger-goodell-defended-nfl-referees-in-2023\"><strong>Roger Goodell defended NFL referees in 2023<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Here&#39;s the full response NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had when asked about the state of officiating.<br><br>Goodell came in strong defending officiating despite the heavy criticism from fans, coaches and team executives. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GeOv3k5KtF\">pic.twitter.com\/GeOv3k5KtF<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySportsUpdate\/status\/1623411332132339712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 8, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As he does every Super Bowl week,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/nfl-commissioner-roger-goodell-sends-warning-shot-all-32-teams-after-titans-coach-dui\/\">NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell<\/a>\u00a0made himself available to the media on multiple occasions to discuss the state of the league in 2023. A persistent question that came up \u2014 especially in light of some of the questionable calls of no-calls in the AFC Championship \u2014 was about the officiating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked about the state of NFL referees in 2023, Goodell bristled at the notion that the league has a major problem with officiating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen you look at officiating, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s ever been better in the league,\u201d Goodell said defiantly. \u201cThere are over 42,000 plays in a season. Multiple infractions could occur on any play. Take that and extrapolate that. That\u2019s hundreds, if not millions of fouls \u2014 of potential fouls \u2014 and our officials do an extraordinary job of getting those.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The commissioner did admit that there are occasionally \u201cmistakes in the context of that,\u201d but the league has mechanisms to address that in the form of booth communication and replay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Goodell then specifically defended the play stoppage in the AFC Championship that gave the Kansas City Chiefs a do-over on 3rd-down. He said that type of play happens all the time, and the NFL referee in that game handled everything correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the end, the NFL boss summed up by saying, \u201cOur officials are held to an incredibly high standard, and I think they meet it. Will we try to get better? You betcha.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Is officiating bad in the NFL?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1250\" height=\"703\" src=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Roger-Goodell-NFL-referees.jpg?w=925&#038;strip=all&#038;quality=89\" alt=\"NFL referees, NFL, Roger Goodell\" class=\"wp-image-1549716\" \/><figcaption>Roger Goodell and NFL referees | Ron Jenkins\/Fort Worth Star-Telegram\/MCT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Goodell gave an excellent defense of his officials, and he was right on many points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, the amount that officials get right over the course of 42,000 plays is incredible. And he also mentioned that the job is harder than ever thanks to super slow-motion replays immediately available on TV. That\u2019s true and makes what officials do even more impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The biggest problem with NFL referees in 2023 is two-fold, and both come from the NFL, not the officials themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One issue is that the league mandates the refs focus on certain things like roughing the passer and defensive holding. These can be game-changing plays, and when the league pushes them, officials call too many borderline penalties on these infractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other issue is that the league uses All-Star teams for the playoffs. Instead of rewarding the best NFL referee and his crew with assignments, the league puts the highest-rated officials at each position (referee, umpire, down judge, line judge, back judge, side judge, field judge) on a crew, which leads to choppier officiating than in the regular season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NFL does need to make some changes, but more on the league side than on the officiating side. Because as much as fan bases like to complain, the NFL referees do get it right more than they get it wrong (sorry, Bengals fans).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roger Goodell says NFL referees are doing a great job, despite what many fans think and complain about every week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":1549716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v22.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NFL Referees: Roger Goodell Gives Defiant Answer on State of Officiating - Sports7<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Roger Goodell says NFL referees are doing a great job, despite what many fans think and complain about every week.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NFL Referees: Roger Goodell Gives Defiant Answer on State of Officiating - 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He excels with his versatile coverage of the NFL and soccer landscape, as well as his expertise breaking down sports media, which stems from his many years downloading podcasts before they were even cool and countless hours spent listening to Mike &amp; The Mad Dog and The Dan Patrick Show, among other programs. As a longtime self-professed sports junkie who even played DII lacrosse at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, Tim loves reading about all the latest sports news every day and considers it a dream to write about sports professionally. He's a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Western New York who mistakenly thought, back in the early '90s, that his team would be in the Super Bowl every year. He started following European soccer \u2014 with a Manchester City focus \u2014 in the early 2000s after spending far too much time playing FIFA. When he's not enjoying a round of golf or coaching youth soccer and flag football, Tim likes reading the work of Bill Simmons, Tony Kornheiser, Chuck Klosterman, and Tom Wolfe.\",\"sameAs\":[\"\",\"twcrean\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/tim-crean-78785622\/\",\"\",\"\"],\"jobTitle\":\"Tim Crean | Sports7 Staff Writer, Producer\",\"email\":\"\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"NFL Referees: Roger Goodell Gives Defiant Answer on State of Officiating - Sports7","description":"Roger Goodell says NFL referees are doing a great job, despite what many fans think and complain about every week.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"NFL Referees: Roger Goodell Gives Defiant Answer on State of Officiating - Sports7","og_description":"Roger Goodell says NFL referees are doing a great job, despite what many fans think and complain about every week.","og_url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/","og_site_name":"Sports7","article_published_time":"2023-02-10T13:34:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-02-10T13:34:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1250,"height":703,"url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Roger-Goodell-NFL-referees.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Tim Crean","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@twcrean","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tim Crean","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/","name":"NFL Referees: Roger Goodell Gives Defiant Answer on State of Officiating - Sports7","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Roger-Goodell-NFL-referees.jpg","datePublished":"2023-02-10T13:34:51+00:00","dateModified":"2023-02-10T13:34:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#\/schema\/person\/3c64130dc33c55e64c149d1269d9c32e"},"description":"Roger Goodell says NFL referees are doing a great job, despite what many fans think and complain about every week.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Roger-Goodell-NFL-referees.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Roger-Goodell-NFL-referees.jpg","width":1250,"height":703,"caption":"Roger Goodell and NFL referees | Ron Jenkins\/Fort Worth Star-Telegram\/MCT"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/nfl-referees-roger-goodell-defiant-answer-state-officiating\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Roger Goodell Gives Defiant Answer on State of NFL Referees"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#website","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/","name":"Sports7","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#\/schema\/person\/3c64130dc33c55e64c149d1269d9c32e","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/author\/timcrean\/","name":"Tim Crean","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3c51cd9ed0a65a3fa7f294aa35badb74?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3c51cd9ed0a65a3fa7f294aa35badb74?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Tim Crean"},"description":"Tim Crean started writing about sports in 2016 and joined Sports7 in 2021. He excels with his versatile coverage of the NFL and soccer landscape, as well as his expertise breaking down sports media, which stems from his many years downloading podcasts before they were even cool and countless hours spent listening to Mike &amp; The Mad Dog and The Dan Patrick Show, among other programs. As a longtime self-professed sports junkie who even played DII lacrosse at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, Tim loves reading about all the latest sports news every day and considers it a dream to write about sports professionally. He's a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Western New York who mistakenly thought, back in the early '90s, that his team would be in the Super Bowl every year. He started following European soccer \u2014 with a Manchester City focus \u2014 in the early 2000s after spending far too much time playing FIFA. 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