Rick Wood / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

NFL proposes rule change to prevent a ‘Fail Mary’ repeat with replacement refs

Originally posted on Larry Brown Sports | By Grey Papke | Last updated Mar 25, 2026 1:16 PM ET

With the NFL facing the possibility of a referee lockout in 2026, the league is trying to insulate himself from serious consequences if it does come to pass.

The NFL’s competition committee on Tuesday proposed a rule that would allow the league office to correct “clear and obvious mistakes” from officials immediately. The rule proposal explicitly states it would only be in effect for one year, and only if “replacement game officials are utilized as the on-field officials.”

Here's the lengthy (temporary) rule proposal in the event the NFL has to use replacement refs this season. The league office would correct "clear and obvious" mistakes by the replacement refs in real-time pic.twitter.com/Hf3P80Mdcp
— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) March 24, 2026

The league’s goal here is very clear: they want to avoid a repeat of what happened last time they had to employ replacement officials. That was in 2012, and led to a number of high-profile mistakes, most infamously the botched call on a Hail Mary that gave the Seattle Seahawks a controversial win over the Green Bay Packers. This rule would allow the league office to intervene and make sure the correct call is made in that sort of situation.

This is also the clearest signal yet that the threat of a referee work stoppage is very real. The current collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of May, and ESPN’s Adam Schefter has previously reported that talks are not going well. The referees’ union has allegedly been resistant to significant changes in proposals made so far.

The NFL wants to ensure that games are not decided by replacement referees making bad calls, if things do come to that. That is good, but it wouldn’t change the fact that fans would likely have to watch a lot of bad calls be overturned by the league office.

This article first appeared on Larry Brown Sports and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: