Officials are doing preseason reps to practice unusual scenarios

Football Zebras exclusive

As has been done in recent years, the NFL officiating department will use the preseason to evaluate and experiment with different procedures. This year, the third under vice president of officiating Ramon George, several initiatives will be taking place, and it is much more than been done in recent years.

Each crew will have a backup referee take over in one of their three games. Some will work full games, and in those cases, those officials are being evaluated for a potential future promotion to the white hat position. Other crews will have an official work the second half at the referee position, and that is to give the emergency referee some reps at the position, but they are not otherwise auditioning for referee.

Additionally, each crew will work a game where they will simulate an official being injured and work with 6 officials. In recent seasons, that was done in conjunction with the emergency referee drills, but this year these drills will not necessarily have the referee absent. An officiating source tells us that the referee will have discretion as to how they want to practice the shorthanded crew and which official will be “injured.”

In moving officials around to accommodate the backup referee drills, officials in the Mackie Development Program will be assigned to games.

Replay is also getting into the regular season shape by operating in a contingency mode simulation. All first-week preseason games will have the replay command center “go dark” for the first quarter to practice situations where the communication link to the Art McNally Game Day Central is lost. In these cases, the replay official will handle replay reviews with the referee. Replay assistants for each crew were moved to the command center last season, and under these simulations, the replay official will not have the assigned replay assistant, only the locally assigned video operator.

Finally, you may see some unusual officiating formations on kickoffs with four officials stationed on or near the goal line. With the dynamic kickoff rules, the officiating department noticed that there were several unflagged holding fouls, and they will experiment with different positioning to see if it improves sightlines.