NFL

This Is Our Nightmare: Replacement Refs Might Work Week 1 Of The Regular Season

The NFL has sent a memo out to its teams, stating that the replacement officials — those horrible, horrible replacement officials — will be working the slate of games on tap for Week 1 of the NFL season. To see why this is terrifying, please click here.

As CBS’ Mike Freeman notes, this very well could be a ploy by the league to speed up the negotiating process with the real officials. According to the memo, the main point of contention is a retirement benefits: the league says it offered its referees a retirement contribution package that averaged $20,000 a year, an offer which the refs presumably denied.

In its memo, the league makes two other points: the replacement referees will do a solid job until the actual referees return to work (we’re obviously not sold on that) and retired veteran referees will be in a booth upstairs supervising the replacements. According to Freeman, these supervisors will contact alternate refs on the sidelines to point out mistakes for future reference, which should do little to save your favorite team when they are inevitably screwed by a blown replacement referee call in a little over a week. So excited for this.

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