Being a referee is one of the hardest jobs in football.
Standing in the middle of the pitch keeping control of multimillionaire sportsmen, keeping your composure and getting the important decisions right is increasingly important. Referees get abuse from fans, players and coaches which makes their job an unenviable task. Worst of all for referees, every game is on the road.
With HD TVs becoming the standard in every fan’s home creates the ability to watch instant replays easy to criticize every split-second decision a referee makes live on the field.
Referees play a very important role and it takes a very special type of person to do it. They have to make important decisions instantly even if it means upsetting thousands of fans. It’s because of this, along with the potential problem of sports gam-blers, that the crew of NFL refs is shuttled with a security group to and from games.
Referees go through a stringent grading process every single game. A referee is sent by the league to sit in the press box and is responsible for noting when a ref got a call right, wrong or just plain didn’t see a penalty.
Referees with good grades are rewarded the opportunity to call postseason games up to the Super Bowl, making bonuses for every postseason game they officiate. In other words, it’s financially in their best interest to call the game as best as they can.
All crews in the NFL are currently all male, but female refs have been climbing the rankings in college for quite some time. It’s widely believed that the first female ref could show up as soon as this season.
A little-known fact about NFL referees is that despite the boos from fans and media, they actually get the calls right 97 percent of the time.
