As NFL team owners head to Dallas for winter meetings, the league needs to address its officiating meltdown

If officiating wasn’t already on the radar for the NFL’s winter meetings this week, a host of blown calls on Sunday may have driven it into the agenda.

Just one week after an officiating crew drew intense scrutiny for missing multiple egregious pass interference penalties in the matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers, multiple games on Sunday had a rash of flags thrown (or not thrown) that left coaches and players lashing out in frustration. In three instances, calls appeared to significantly impact games that will likely have implications on playoff seeding at the end of the season. That reality again raises the specter that the league continues to fail in its quest for consistent officiating — which is even more troubling now that the NFL has embraced gambling as a driver of new revenue streams.

While missed or improper penalties are often the most spotlighted issues each week of the season, the growing concern and frustration of team front offices and coaching staffs is how the league’s crews are varying in the way they call games. The inconsistency between one crew to the next often leaves teams feeling as if they’re facing two jobs each Sunday: figuring out the team on the other sideline, and then figuring out how a crew is calling a game while it’s still unfolding. When the latter effort falters, it can create some explosive moments from teams in the immediate wake of a game.

That was showcased Sunday, when the Chiefs lost at home to the Buffalo Bills in a game that saw a mesmerizing trick-play touchdown reversed late in the fourth quarter. The touchdown and ensuing extra point would have put the Chiefs ahead 24-20 with just over one minute left — instead it was called back when officials flagged wideout Kadarius Toney for a rare offensive offsides penalty. Replays showed that Toney’s midsection appeared to be lined up parallel to the football at the snap, leaning tightly with the line of scrimmage.

After taking the points off the board, the Chiefs ultimately lost 20-17. The aftermath of the moment left Patrick Mahomes caught on camera slamming his helmet on the sideline and then screaming while trying to confront officials as multiple teammates restrained him. It then overflowed into the Kansas City locker room and news conferences afterward, with the Chiefs’ typically even-keeled head coach, Andy Reid, blasting the officiating for not warning him that Toney was lined up offsides before the snap. It's a warning that Reid said he has gotten from other officiating crews in similar situations.

“Normally I get a warning before something like that happens in a big game,” Reid said. “[It’s] a bit embarrassing to the National Football League for something like that to take place. … Normally if it’s even close, you get a warning — the head coach gets a warning. I didn’t have a protractor out there [to measure where Toney lined up.] It’s a bit embarrassing. I’ve been in the league a long time and haven’t had one like that, where at least for that kind of position there, it’s not given a heads-up to.”

Reid wasn’t alone. Running back Jerick McKinnon was critical of the referees in the locker room, while Mahomes remarked that the flag changed the outcome of the game and that in seven years he’d “never” had an offensive offsides penalty called.

In terms of whether there has been a change for the league in terms of issuing warnings, former NFL official and current NBC analyst Terry McAulay said during the "Sunday Night Football" halftime broadcast that the league is emphasizing calling offensive offsides and that the penalty has been called 11 times this season, as opposed to twice in 2022 and only once in 2021.

“This is being consistently called,” McAulay said. “He needs to be onside.”

While that may be the case, this wasn’t a lone point of contention. Following Kansas City’s loss to Green Bay one week earlier, former NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino called out the crew handling the game on The33rdteam.com, citing multiple plays that were incorrectly called.

“This officiating crew, and the officiating department — I know if I were there, I’d be the first one to tell you, ‘We have to be better,’” Blandino said.

Spinning it back to Sunday, there were multiple plays that drew criticism. Among them:

• During the Baltimore Ravens’ thrilling 37-31 win over the Los Angeles Rams — via a 76-yard punt return for a touchdown by wideout Tylan Wallace in overtime — officials missed a clear block in the back by the Ravens during the play. And it didn’t take place far from the ball. Instead, the block took place when a Rams player was angling toward Wallace right as he turned the ball upfield and into the open. Instead of making a tackle, the Rams defender narrowly missed Wallace’s legs.

• During the Chicago Bears’ 28-13 win over the Detroit Lions, officials declared that a Justin Fields throw in the third quarter on third-and-13 was an incomplete pass rather than intentional grounding. On the play, Fields was in the grasp of Lions defensive end Julian Okwara and going down for a sack when he threw a pass that hit the ankle of an offensive lineman. The closest receiving target was nearly 10 yards away, and Fields began his throwing motion after being contacted by the defender — which the rulebook stipulates makes the quarterback responsible for where the football ends up. It went 2 feet and hit the legs of a lineman, which should have resulted in intentional grounding and a loss of 10 yards and the down. The officials instead ruled it was an incomplete pass. On the next play, Fields threw a 38-yard touchdown to wideout DJ Moore on fourth-and-13. The Lions fell apart after that turn.
  

• During the New Orleans Saints’ 28-6 win over the Carolina Panthers, Saints quarterback Derek Carr was under pressure on a screen pass and threw into the chest of an offensive lineman. There was no receiving option inside 15 yards, largely because running back Alvin Kamara had gone to the opposite sideline for the screen pass. Officials ruled, incomprehensibly, that it was an incomplete pass and not intentional grounding.
  

• And in what will result in a fine, a litany of questionable calls and no-calls in the Cleveland Browns’ 31-27 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars prompted Browns defensive end Myles Garrett to blast the game’s officiating crew. “The officiating was a travesty today,” Garrett told reporters. “It was honestly awful. … Someone has to hold them accountable for the calls they don’t make.”

Even in a league where the officiating is regularly under fire, the run of issues over the past two Sundays is significant, particularly when the miscues impact wins and losses for a multitude of teams positioning themselves for playoff seeding. That alone calls into question why the league’s team owners continue to prioritize cost over more aggressive approaches to resolving the problems through the use of technology, full-time officials, or simply taking a tougher approach to crews or individual officials that have a history of blowing calls.

Surely NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will be asked about it at the league meetings this week. And surely he will reiterate what he says every time these problems reach a boiling point — that the league’s officiating is at a high level and continuing to get better. That's in spite of what his players, coaches and everyone with eyeballs continue to see.