Cardinals coach Bruce Arians is the newest member of the league’s competition committee, and in that new role he’s acting as a strong backer of full-time officials.
Arians said that contrary to those who think there’s not enough work to justify officiating as a full-time position, NFL teams could have officials working at their practices and it would improve both the quality of officiating and the quality of play.
“The biggest thing is they can come to practice and work practices and do things,” Arians said, via the Arizona Republic. “To me, the No. 1 scenario is that you’d have enough crews to go in every city -- half crews or four-to-five-man crews -- and work practice, work every single day, and not call that team’s games. . . . Just be a full-time official that has to make quick decisions and stays in shape.”
The NFL already has a few full-time officials, but there’s increasing support in the league for making every referee a full-time employee, and perhaps for having many of the other on-field officials classified as full-time workers as well. Arians thinks they’ll have plenty of work to do.