The National Football League is considering the concept of creating its own referee development academy, a result of its current lockout of officials which could drastically change the way officials are identified, trained and ultimately hired in the future, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports reports. This according to a league source.
As part of commissioner Roger Goodell's quest for innovation in all parts of the game, the league's officiating and football operations have been studying the progress of the measures enacted with the replacement refs, all of whom have far less high-level experience than their locked-out counterparts.
Through the process of training the replacements, the league has cultivated more ideas about how to train its officials and grow the pool of prospects, and the league is also intrigued by the prospect of a program to expedite the process of getting recently retired players more quickly into the ranks of NFL officials, the source said.
We are learning a lot during this process (of fielding replacement officials), the source said, and we have found that you can identify and train talented people who are passionate about this job, and do it in a more expedited fashion. It doesn't have to be the old way of taking 10-to-12 years of big-time college experience. We've realized through the process how to be more innovative in terms of training and development, and we're finding that the old way to do it is not necessarily the best way.
Source: The Redzone
Attached Thumbnails
As part of commissioner Roger Goodell's quest for innovation in all parts of the game, the league's officiating and football operations have been studying the progress of the measures enacted with the replacement refs, all of whom have far less high-level experience than their locked-out counterparts.
Through the process of training the replacements, the league has cultivated more ideas about how to train its officials and grow the pool of prospects, and the league is also intrigued by the prospect of a program to expedite the process of getting recently retired players more quickly into the ranks of NFL officials, the source said.
We are learning a lot during this process (of fielding replacement officials), the source said, and we have found that you can identify and train talented people who are passionate about this job, and do it in a more expedited fashion. It doesn't have to be the old way of taking 10-to-12 years of big-time college experience. We've realized through the process how to be more innovative in terms of training and development, and we're finding that the old way to do it is not necessarily the best way.
Source: The Redzone
Attached Thumbnails
Original Story:
|
September 18, 2012
