NFL: referees reach agreement; refs back on field Thursday

[evo]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000...aking_news

Quote:The NFL reached an agreement with the NFL Referees Association on Wednesday night to end the lockout, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the refs will be back on the field starting Thursday night.

"We appreciate the commitment of the NFLRA in working through the issues to reach this important agreement," Goodell said in a joint statement issued by the NFL and NFLRA.

"Our Board of Directors has unanimously approved taking this proposed CBA to the membership for a ratification vote," said Scott Green, president of the NFLRA. "We are glad to be getting back on the field for this week's games."

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A high-ranked referee told NFL.com and NFL Network's Jeff Darlington earlier that the officials are prepared to immediately begin work, noting he and many others have gotten access to all of the videos from the last three weeks of games that were distributed to the replacement officials.

While the referee said his colleagues would have liked to work a few preseason games, he says it isn't necessary to do their job.

Earlier Wednesday, the league and referees agreed to create a developmental program as a compromise to the NFL's demand for the addition of 21 officials to the current contingent of 121 NFLRA members, per an NFLRA source. The pool of money for the existing officials also will remain the same.

The developmental officials will be mentored by the existing crews and will be assigned to work with them during the week. The developmental officials will not be NFLRA members, will not work games and will not be eligible to be subbed in initially.

But eventually, as they improve and reach the standards to be NFL officials, they will be considered for NFLRA membership. As that happens, the financial pool for officials will be adjusted accordingly.

[RockHoward]

Well I guess this means we are back to the regime of protecting the media darling players and teams. It has been fun having games called down the middle (despite the obvious problems that the replacement refs caused.)

I hope that these new provisions for the league to hire, train and assign games to new refs puts a charge into those refs that needed it. The NFL was correct to work towards a strategy that accelerates the replacement of the current generation of referees as many of them have demonstrated that they cannot handle the speed of the game and their advancing age suggests that they never will.

[phocis850]

Now another 3 weeks of refs screwing up.

It will take till about the 10th game this season before the refs are fully back to normal.
They missed all preseason to practice as well.

[RFlagg]

[mdrake34]

(09-27-2012 09:19 AM)RFlagg Wrote:  

Hah.

[RnB]

My sentiments exactly RFlagg.

[papachaz]

i'm gonna guess that out of pure ignorant bliss, most of this weeks games will go mostly through the first quarter before the bitching starts about the regular refs and blown calls....

[Jesus]

Does this mean that the pundits can finally stop complaining about the replacement refs and start talking about how good the Falcons look.

[papachaz]

(09-27-2012 12:39 PM)Jesus Wrote:  Does this mean that the pundits can finally stop complaining about the replacement refs and start talking about how good the Falcons look.

no they're not concerned with us. it's more important that Brady and the Pats are below .500 for the first time in 9 years

and just because the 'old bad refs' are now back instead of the 'new replacement bad refs' doesn't mean we're not gonna still have the replays of 'the inaccurate reception' crammed down our throats as Hochuli and company get back into the game

[juraitwaluzka]

My fear is that the only thing that happens is things stay the same. The replacements sucked, no doubt, but long term I think nothing much changes and that's just a damn shame. This was really the only opportunity to get better officiated games and now its gone because of a reaction to a media feeding frenzy.

My hope is that a non Falcons game is decided by a horrible call this weekend just for the perspective alone.

And just for the hell of it I would like to punch Mike Pereria in the gut preemptively because of the nauseating ass kissing comments that are sure to be coming the first time he is asked about a bad call by his buddies.