{"id":557829,"date":"2026-04-01T08:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/557829\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T08:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:05:10","slug":"roger-goodell-our-no-1-objective-is-to-improve-officiating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/557829\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Goodell: Our No. 1 objective is to improve officiating"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the week of Super Bowl LX in February, commissioner Roger Goodell said he was \u201cso amazed at how good our officials are<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

But as the NFL and the NFL Referees Association continue to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, the tone from Goodell and others in the league office has changed. <\/p>\n

Goodell said in his Tuesday press conference that talks between the two sides have not progressed in the way he hoped.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe obviously have obligations to our fans, to everybody in the National Football League to play, and we will be prepared to play. And so, we are taking appropriate steps to be ready,\u201d Goodell said, in reference to the league hiring replacement officials. \u201cBut we\u2019re also keeping focused on negotiations. So, we\u2019d like to get a negotiated deal, and we certainly are focused on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to those negotiations with the NFLRA, as NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller noted earlier on Tuesday, the league is focused on improving accountability and performance<\/a>. Goodell was asked if having full-time officials could improve officiating and if there is buy-in from ownership to make that happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur No. 1 objective is to improve officiating,\u201d Goodell said. \u201cWe think we owe that to the game, we think we owe it to our players, coaches, and our fans. So, that\u2019s what we\u2019re focused on. We did \u2014 in the last agreement before COVID \u2014 have an opportunity to hire some officials full-time. I think it was about a dozen. We didn\u2019t see any difference in their performance by being full-time. But there are benefits to being able to work with officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd one of the issues we have in part of our negotiations on accountability and performance, is when an official is not performing at the highest level or a level we think is acceptable at the NFL, is to be able to work with them, and to train them, and to give them more opportunities to get better, ultimately. And we can\u2019t do that in some cases \u2014 there\u2019s a blackout period, for example. We can\u2019t touch them until May, and be able to have those opportunities. So, those are the types of things that we\u2019re looking to do to try to make sure we\u2019re improving officiating and improving the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodell added that while he\u2019s been \u201cvery positive\u201d about the game\u2019s officials, there is still room for improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019ve been very clear about that,\u201d Goodell said. \u201cWe know that we can take officials that aren\u2019t performing at that level and either work with them to get better or find other officials that can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the week of Super Bowl LX in February, commissioner Roger Goodell said he was \u201cso amazed at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-557829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}