NFL fires refs, works to improve officiating

The NFL invoked the ire of many of its fans a couple of weeks ago when they elected not to expand instant replay to include penalties. Thursday, they announced something that might have a larger and more meaningful impact long-term. They actually fired some of their worst officials.

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The NFL has also hired a bunch of new officials to replace those that were let go. They are, for the most part, younger and more athletic than a typical NFL ref. It has never made much sense for a group of 50- and 60-somethings to be out there trying to keep up with the speed of the NFL game.

At this point, we don’t know which refs were fired. We can only hope that Jeff Triplett is among those that are no longer employed. It would make sense that he’d be one of the group that was fired, since he has been consistently awful over the last few years.

And that is exactly what it takes for an NFL official to get fired according to NFL VP of officiating Dean Blandino (Quote taken from Pro Football Talk):

"Any official, in any competitive arena, could have a poor season, so one season may not necessarily cause us to terminate an official, But if it becomes a trend, multiple seasons, we have a tier-based ranking system, the third tier being the lowest performers. Once they enter Tier 3 we put them in an enhanced training regimen and put them in that program, and if we still don’t see improvement, that’s when we move on."

The NFL fired a number of officials a year ago as well. We can only assume that is why Mike Cary found himself no longer apart of the NFL. According to Blandino, the overall quality of the officiating actually improved last season after those those changes were made.

It is difficult to evaluate if that it actually true though. The overall quality of the officiating still felt rather poor last season. Part of that was because of the “point of emphasis” on defensive holding though, which wasn’t an issue in 2013. It would also make sense that it will take a year or two for the new officials to get used to the NFL’s game speed, so hopefully we’ll see noticeable improvement soon.

Overall though, it is good to see the NFL taking steps to improve the quality of the officiating. It has been a problem for far too long.

Next: Are the Seahawks the NFL's most hated team?

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