The NFL already lost some experienced referees before last season when Gene Steratore, Ed Hochuli, Terry McCauley, and Jeff Triplette retired — fine Triplette wasn’t a huge loss for anyone that had to sit through one of his games — and now the NFL is losing another experienced referee. John Parry will not be returning to the NFL according to NFL head of officiating Al Riveron. Sure, Parry wasn’t a very well known official like some of the other names listed above, but he had 19 seasons and three Super Bowls worth of experience. As a reminder, the officials for the Super Bowl are chosen based on their performance during the season so Parry graded out well.
This is not a great thing for the NFL. Officials are being criticized more and more as we have the technology and ability to see when they missed a call. Losing that type of institutional knowledge in a short time isn’t exactly great. I guess the NFL could go just full Jay Glazer and figure out a way to fill in the talent with extremely outside the box thinking but that’s probably not a good idea either.
Every year the older more experienced generation leaves the workforce, but the NFL doesn’t exactly have the feeder system the rest of the economy does. They can’t simply go and hire college referees because that would be a horrible decision which they’d know if they watched any football on Saturday during college football season. They also run the risk of having inexperienced referees assigned to big games. Officials will be under an even greater microscope because of the new pass interference review rule, and the NFL is changing other rules at a rapid pace. It’s a bad mix that won’t hurt the league but remember fans were up in arms over replacement refs and new officials aren’t going to have the requisite in-game experience to be much better.
Of course, the NFL could have helped itself out by using the technology available by say having an extra official who can be an eye in the sky . . . but we know how the owners feel about that.
