NFL Referees Challenge Suspensions as Labor Expert Says Officials Are Fed Up’

The NFL’s decision to suspend two officials has opened a larger fight over whether referees are being held to standards the league fails to enforce on the players and coaches confronting them.

The NFL Referees Association said in a statement on Oct. 6 that it will challenge the severity of the discipline imposed on line judge Jeff Seeman and referee Adrian Hill for separate incidents of unprofessional conduct.

Seeman received a two-game suspension after cameras caught him swearing at Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride during the team’s loss to the New York Giants. Hill was suspended for one game after yelling and gesturing at Minnesota Vikings linebacker Eric Wilson, who had tried to help him up after a collision knocked the referee down.

“Accountability matters, but that should not result in discipline that is excessive or inconsistent with established precedent,” NFLRA executive director Scott Green said.

Labor relations consultant Jason Greer of Greer Consulting said neither the punishment nor the union’s response surprised him.

“I was not surprised that the NFL had essentially suspended these referees for allegedly cursing at the players, but I also wasn’t surprised when the NFL’s Referee Association decided to go ahead and challenge or appeal the suspension,” Greer tells First For Sports.

The NFLRA acknowledged that officials must behave professionally but argued that the conduct directed at them cannot simply be dismissed as part of the sport. The union plans to meet with the league’s officiating department about disciplinary standards and players’ union leaders about increasingly confrontational on-field interactions.

“I guarantee you the referees have been challenging the NFL for years in terms of holding players more accountable to the level of respect and sportsmanlike conduct that they should demonstrate on the field,” Greer says.

“At this point the referees probably feel like they are the ones who are consistently catching the flack and the NFL is doing absolutely nothing to protect them,” he says.

Resolving the dispute, he suggests, will require more than deciding whether Seeman should miss two games or Hill should miss one.

“In terms of what it’s going to look like for a potential resolution between the NFL and the referees, it’s likely going to take the NFL and the Referees Association actually sitting down, talking about what the new rules of engagement look like,” Greer says.

Those talks, he adds, must address protections for officials facing hostility from players, coaches, crowds and even people online.

“They’re catching it online, they’re catching it on the field, they’re catching it from the coaches, and they’re probably fed up,” Greer says.

“I think what we’re going to see is a new standard that will be introduced,” he says, “so that the NFL will hold the players accountable, and the NFL will also be able to hold the referees accountable, while also ensuring the referees feel like they’re being protected through this entire process.”