NFL players often complain about NFL referees, and the NFL Referees’ Association is sick of it.
NFL Referees Association Executive Director Scott Green told USA Today he wants NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith to work with him toward more respect between the two unions’ memberships. Green said he’s concerned about incidents in which players including Josh Norman, Jalen Ramsey and Travis Kelce had harsh things to say about officials.
“They got all fined, and yeah, that’s very concerning to us,” Green said. “That’s different than what we’ve seen in the past, and it’s definitely something that I want to talk to De Smith about with the players association: What is it we need to do about that? We appreciate that the league reprimands guys for doing that, but we also like it to be known that in those instances, all those calls were correct. That, to us, is equally as important, that the public knows that.”
Green said NFL referees are better than they get credit for.
“I’m not going to say we don’t miss calls. We obviously do,” Green said. “But players miss plays and coaches miss plays as well. When we’re in the high-90s [as a percentage of calls correct], we’re doing pretty good for basically getting that one look when we make the call and then obviously there’s replay to help. To say that officiating is getting worse is just not correct.”
But whether Green likes it or not, plenty of players just don’t think the officials are good enough. The complaints are unlikely to stop unless the officiating improves.