Other professional sports leagues have the ability to get judgment calls right, so when will the NFL?

With billions bet on sports each year, leagues need to do more to ensure accurate officiating, particularly with NFL football

There is probably no job less thankful in the world than being a league official. If the official gets the call right then everyone just ignores it, understanding they just did their job. But if the official makes a bad call or a questionable judgment call, they they more often than not are blamed for the game’s outcome. And in some cases, the job can lead to injury or death by angry players, fans, or bettors.  

The most famous global example of this occurred in a 2013 Brazilian soccer match when a 20-year-old amateur referee ejected a player from the game. The player refused to leave the field and began to punch the referee. Fearing for his life, the referee pulled out a knife and stabbed the player, who eventually died from his wounds in the hospital. This action in turn led to fans and family members of the player to storm the field, tie up the referee, stone him to death, decapitate him, cut him up into four pieces and hang the referee’s head on a stake placed in the middle of the field! While this was the most disturbing account, there have been many reports of officials killed or injured by fans who believed a bad call affected a game and often because they claim the call cost them a lot of money. There have also been reports of officials being chased by people with machetes after a controversial call and multiple death threats after games. Unfortunately, there are also reports of players who have been killed by angry fans who bet on a game, including Colombian player Andrés Escobar who scored an own goal in the World Cup and was shot six times with a .38 caliber pistol by a so-called fan and apparent gambler who yelled "goal" after each shot.

When the U.S. leagues were opposed to sports betting, they often cited concerns about game fixing, but one real concern was that players and officials were often in danger, put into a compromising position by gamblers who bet on the game and were often targeted by gamblers who lose a lot of money. Nevertheless, all leagues are now in bed with the sports betting industry and rake in millions from endorsements, sponsorships, advertising, and other forms of marketing. Consequently, it is the responsibility of the league and its officials to ensure that calls are made fairly and that every possible method is used to ensure accuracy. Years ago, that would have been deemed a pipe dream, but with today’s technology it is absolutely possible.

Tennis gets it right

As an example, referees in tennis were often the subject of anger and ridicule for bad calls. Any tennis fan will recall John McEnroe screaming at the ref for making a bad in/out call. Consequently, the tennis federations launched Hawk-Eye to eliminate that judgment call. Hawk-Eye uses six or more computer-linked television cameras situated around the court. The computer processes the video in real-time and tracks the path of the tennis ball on each camera. These six separate views are then combined to produce an accurate 3D representation of the path of the ball. It was first used in the 2006 U.S. Open and has been used regularly in tennis since 2020 to reduce the number of people on a court. Since it was released, disagreements on the court have all but ended as players and fans just accept where Hawk-Eye said the ball landed.

MLB looking to fix umpire balls and strikes

In baseball, home run and fair or foul calls can be reviewed, but balls and strikes are still left up to the judgment of the umpire. Baseball fans just accepted incompetent umpiring but when TV broadcasts started to superimpose the strike zone box it frequently showed just how bad the calls often were, which led baseball to devise a solution. Consequently, about three years ago, Major League Baseball announced they will be launching the automatic ball-strike system (ABS) and they now plan to use it in Spring Training games starting next month. This technology will use cameras, radar and software to track a ball’s trajectory and position relative to the strike zone. Once launched, each team will get an undetermined number of challenges to umpire calls. The benefit is to ensure better accuracy and if it is deemed completely accurate there is talk of moving to "robo umps" whereby the home plate umpire will make no ball or strike calls and instead will just motion-based on how the ABS system rules. The challenge system was launched in Triple-A baseball last year. One of the reasons analysts cited was the amount of betting on baseball and bad umpire decisions deciding games, which they said just isn’t acceptable in this time of legal sports betting.

What are other leagues doing?

Other sports including soccer, football, hockey and basketball rely on instant replay to help officials make correct decisions, but each uses it in a different way. In soccer, FIFA has been using Video Assistant Referee (VAR) for almost a decade to rule on decisions. It was originally only used to decide if a player was offside, but is now used for a multiple of decisions, all with the goal of determining accuracy. The VAR is the final adjudicator, but he has several assistant video referees that are assigned to watch different parts of the games on numerous cameras set up around the field, and if they determine they saw something,  they communicate it to the VAR. Along with the video referees there are also several replay officials who, as a team, rule on a play, with the majority rule usually giving the VAR decision. In basketball, video replay was first used to determine if a player got the ball off in time before the shot clock or game clock ran out, but since then it has been expanded to multiple situations such as whether a player was behind the 3-point line, if the ball went out of bounds, or if a player committed a blatant foul. All refs look at the video with the assistance of a referee outside the stadium and make the decision based on video evidence. For situations like shot clock violations the answer is pretty clear, but for fouls it’s often subjective. And in hockey, a challenge by a coach goes directly to a referee located outside of the arena, often in a New York studio, who makes the decision. In all sports a team is limited to only a few challenges so the game will not be constantly interrupted, but there are other ways to allow more challenges with repercussions that would dissuade too many uses of them. In hockey, for example, if a coach loses a challenge, that team gets a 2-minute penalty for delay of game. This could apply to other sports as well, such as giving a team a 5-yard delay of game penalty for a wrong challenge in football, a technical foul for a bad challenge in basketball or a walk or out for a bad challenge in baseball. Doing so would open up the opportunity to challenge more things with the understanding that a wrong challenge would not only cost additional challenges, but also could result in a further penalty.

Then there is the NFL

That brings us to football and particularly NFL football. The NFL launched instant replay before most other leagues and it was used primarily to decide if there was a touchdown or not. Now, any scoring plays or turnovers are automatically reviewed and any play such as a legal catch or not inside of two minutes to play can only be called by the replay official who is in a booth watching the game. But while decisions on legal catches, scoring and whether a player made a first down or not can be challenged, penalties cannot. And this is one area where the league fails greatly. For a year the league allowed teams to challenge pass interference calls after a blatant pass interference call was missed in a game involving the New Orleans Saints. But, referees were so angered that their judgment was being called into question, they simply announced the ruling on the field stands for any challenges for pass interference, often not even watching the replay. Consequently, the league removed any challenges for penalties. But often a missed penalty can drastically affect the outcome. It’s too hard to list comprehensive examples but off the top of my head here were 6 missed penalties in 2024 that likely cost the team a win or a chance at a win.

- A face mask call that gave a team a first down which effectively ended the game when the replay showed they only touched the player’s shoulder.
- An offside call that negated a touchdown, when replay clearly showed the player was onside.
- A non-call on a blatant offside that was missed and that player scored a touchdown.
- A pass interference call on a player that never touched the opponent that negated a touchdown.
- A roughing the passer call on a quarterback who simply fell without being touched which ended the game.
- A missed call for a team with 12 players on the field which helped them sack the quarterback.

And whether the NFL wants to admit it or not, betting is paramount to their success and as mentioned at the start of this article, if they are benefitting from wagering on their games, it is crucial that they do what they can to ensure accuracy. 

But if penalties are allowed to be challenged, they have to be reviewed by a 3rd party. As was proven with the referees refusing to overturn pass interference calls, they can’t be trusted to be both judge and jury. For what it’s worth, any major penalty can be challenged in Canadian football and the referees in that league have no issue admitting they were wrong and overturning the call. Utilizing a rule like hockey, where, if a coach challenges and loses then they are given a 5-yard penalty for delay of game and a 10-yard penalty for subsequent bad challenges would negate endless challenges that would create a situation where games go on forever.

Bills/Chiefs

But as beneficial as it would be to allowing more challenges in football, what would be far more beneficial is using advanced technology to determine if a player made the first down  marker or made a legal catch. In this weekend’s AFC championship game between Buffalo and Kansas City the most pivotal play was Josh Allen’s failed attempt to make the first down with just over 2 minutes on the clock. clearly showed Allen was over the line to gain, but the ruling on the field was that he was short of the line and the referees ruled there was not enough video evidence to overturn the call. Lasik.com showed the still picture of Allen over the line on X and said they were offering free Lasik surgery to all referees. And for every post on social media saying the call was right there were dozens saying the referee calls were not only wrong, but were clearly biased. And this has happened the last two years forcing the league to assure fans that the referees were not told by the league to ensure Kansas City won so that Taylor Swift would attend the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, it was a judgment call and as one analyst posted "in this day and age of technology we should never hear the words from a referee that there was not enough video evidence to overturn the call on the field."

Better Vision. Better Calls.

Still literally offering all NFL refs free LASIK. pic.twitter.com/pOGHtVTYwk

— LASIK.com (@LASIKdotcom) January 27, 2025

NFL.com has already indicated on their site that Next Gen Stats in partnership with Zebra Technologies and Wilson Sporting Goods has developed technology using AWS that has a tracking system composed of 20-30 ultra-wide band receivers and RFID tags on player’s should pads, officials, pylons, sticks, chains and the ball to allow teams and the league to know precisely where a player and ball is at any time. If that is the case, there is no reason they can’t perfect this technology even more to pinpoint to an inch of where the ball is at a given time. Using that information to see the exact latitude/longitude of the football and the line marker would make the call absolutely certain and not a judgment call. And in the UK Kinexon Sports has integrated ball tracking sensors that let’s them pinpoint precisely where a ball is at any given time with a tracker in the ball itself.

Similarly, in the same game there was a play where it seemed the ball touched the  ground before being caught, but the refs ruled it a good catch. In that case, the technology could look at the data from the football and the RFID on the player’s shoulder pad (and could even be put on other uniform parts) so that there would be no question as to whether the player caught the ball legally or not. There are far too many times the decision is left to the naked eye which shouldn’t happen when there is so much riding on an accurate call. After all, even in NASCAR the technology exists to show that a car going 200 MPH beat another by 0.001 seconds.

So, once again Buffalo Bills fans and supporters are furious at the outcome and blaming the officiating for the loss, while Kansas City Chiefs fans are saying it’s sour grapes. If the NFL had a system like tennis, or even soccer, that provided enough guarantees on the position of a football that would eliminate judgment calls on the exact placement of the football, and utilized it, these controversies would be eliminated. And it does seem the league has the technology but for some reason has chosen to sit on it. Even baseball is preparing to rely on technology to call balls and strikes, making the home plate umpire more of a status symbol than an official, so surely the NFL that relies on betting for its success can do more.  As the analyst said “we should never hear the words from a referee that there was not enough video evidence to overturn the call on the field.” The answer should be a decisive yes or no with no ambiguity.

Read insights from veteran gambling columnist Hartley Henderson here at OSGA and check out Hartley's RUMOR MILL!