NFL Adds 5 New Officials; Attempts to Fix ‘Broken’ Officiating

One of the reasons Walt Anderson’s son, Derek Anderson, was not able to become an NFL official last year was because Walt was the senior vice president of officiating.

The league’s human resources department wouldn’t allow Derek to become an official and therefore report to his father. Now that Walt has stepped down, Derek is allowed to be an official in the league. Joining Derek Anderson are four more officials:

• Jeff Hutcheon – Line of Scrimmage
• Brian Perry – Line of Scrimmage
• Robert Richeson – Line of Scrimmage
• Karina Tovar – Downfield

While Walt is no longer the senior vice president of officiating, he is instead moving to another position within the league’s officiating department. Walt explained the move in a statement from The Spun.

“Our entire family is very proud of Derek’s outstanding career as a college football official. We are excited to see him have the opportunity to contribute as an official at the NFL level,” he said in a statement.

“With Derek’s promotion, I expect to begin the process of transitioning to a new role as an NFL Rules Analyst & Club Communications Liaison, where I will focus on communicating with the clubs during the week and with our broadcast partners on gamedays.”

“While I will no longer be making officiating decisions, together with a variety of stakeholders I will continue to look for new and better ways to promote excellence in officiating performance. I welcome this challenge and look forward to the opportunity to support the men and women who do such a tremendous job officiating our game at every level.”

Many big-time games were defined by officials in 2023

Several games in the 2023 season were defined by poor calls or a lack of calls, including the Super Bowl. One of the most notable instances of this was when the Detroit Lions took on the Dallas Cowboys late in the regular season.

Offensive tackle Taylor Decker was called for illegal touching even though he reportedly told the referee that he was eligible. With massive playoff intentions, the end of this game was defined by an objectively bad call from the referee.

In a much more important game, the Super Bowl, many fans thought the game was rigged due to the lack of holding penalties that were called on the Kansas City Chiefs. In the last three Super Bowls the Chiefs won, the offensive line has never been called for a holding penalty.

NFL executives and officials are calling officiating “broken”

NFL executives and coaches said in an article from Yahoo Sports that officiating is “broken”. One of the reasons officiating doesn’t seem to get better is that no resources are being used to make that happen.

“I feel like it’s such a cop out,” the NFC assistant coach said. “It’s the same reason why we don’t have the same cameras in non-prime time games. They don’t wanna pay for all 30 stadiums to have pylon cams and first-down cameras. Now they don’t want 17 booth officials that they have to pay more money to.

“But it’s like: [An] owner literally spilled a drink and has to pay 300 grand. Assume all 31 owners spilled a drink on a fan. That would go a long way to getting qualified officials.

“They easily have the money.”

In reference to the aforementioned ineligible receiver debacle that took place in the late-season game between the Lions and the Cowboys, one AFC general manager shared his thoughts.

“I would bet my bottom dollar the ref screwed up and was going through the motion,” one AFC general manager told Yahoo Sports. “It’s an inexcusable mistake for a game that had huge playoff implications in prime time. [But the league is] defensive of officiating for some reason.”

Additional referees being added to the roster would indicate that there’s at least some amount of resources being used for officiating, but it is hard to say that fans of the NFL will ever be happy with the state of officiating.