Officiating in American football is one of the toughest jobs out there. You can’t get every call right, and more often than not, fans and pundits may more attention to the mistakes you make compared to the calls you correctly made.
But if you can handle the criticism, then it’s a great gig. As noted by Andrew Petcash, refs for today’s NFL playoff games made a cool $5,000. In a follow-up tweet, Petcash cited a report from Sporting News which claimed that the average salary for a referee is $205,000.
Indeed, it’s a well-paid position when you only have to work once a week for approximately four and a half months of the year.
NFL fans and pundits have spent years criticizing NFL officiating and calling for changes. Over the years, we’ve seen the league implement replay review and coach’s challenges in order to accommodate officials.
But the reality is, mistakes are still all too common, and it’s going to take a sky judge system or something similar for the backlash against officials to drastically reduce. We’ll see if Roger Goodell and company take any steps towards improving the officiating system later in the offseason.
