Have you ever watched an NFL game, seen a bad call and questioned if one of the teams paid the referee? You wouldn’t be alone.
Officiating in the NFL has become one of the most debated topics in professional sports. While the league reports that officials are accurate on around 98.9% of calls, that statistic doesn’t align with how fans experience games in real time. In a sport where most contests are decided within one or two possessions, even four to five missed or incorrect calls per game can change the tide of an entire matchup, even a season.
After a December contest between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the NFL acknowledged that officials were wrong on a key call that involved Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely. Likely was pulled down by a defender and a defensive pass interference should have been called. Instead, no flag was thrown. The missed penalty occurred at a critical moment and would have significantly changed field position in a tightly-contested divisional matchup.
Moments like this fuel frustration, they reinforce how thin the margin for error is. Replay overturns about one-third of reviewable plays, which means officials are confirmed roughly two-thirds of the time. Some unofficial analyses estimate missed call rates around 8% for holding and 15% for pass interference. Even if those numbers are rough, the perception remains that certain penalties are inconsistently enforced.
High-profile situations illustrate the impact of missed calls. The 2018 NFC Championship between the New Orleans Saints and the Los Angeles Rams featured a late no-call on obvious pass interference that many believe altered who advanced to the Super Bowl. The 2012 “Fail Mary” game between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks during the replacement referee era also damaged league credibility.
These moments endure because of their magnitude.
Then, there, too, is a duality in fan perception. When a borderline call benefits their team, it is seen as fair. When the same type of call goes against them, it becomes proof that officiating is broken. Outrage is almost always louder when the ruling hurts rather than helps. Passion drives fandom, but it also shapes perception.
For many observers, the biggest issue is consistency. Michael Mannino, a security and defense policy junior, said he thinks officiating will never be fixed because it is strictly human error.
“There will be no calls all game and then in the final minutes of the game the officials go all out on calling penalties,” Mannino said. “One word to describe everything is consistency.”
Mannino suggested the NFL establish a more structured training system for aspiring officials or consider hiring former players, coaches or league employees who better understand the game’s speed and physicality.
Zach Beaman, a cybersecurity junior, said he thinks the league should implement something similar to FIFA’s video assistant referee technology to assist referees in key moments.
Thomas DeLucia, a sports management sophomore, said officiating has been “getting worse and worse each year.” He proposed fining officials for major mistakes, similar to how players are fined, and expanding the use of AI to reduce human error. He said that the NFL has improved review angles and broadcast production.
While the spotlight is brightest on Sundays, the same dynamics exist at the college level, including at the university. Charger fans feel the same way as NFL fans do. One holding call, pass interference flag or questionable spot can completely swing momentum in a tight game. Unlike the NFL, there are fewer replay resources and less national scrutiny, but the impact is no smaller for the Chargers. When a call goes our way, it’s part of the game. When it doesn’t, it becomes the moment everyone remembers.
Research says that perceptual limitations in high-speed sports environments contribute to officiating mistakes, which means human error is inevitable. The debate then is not whether mistakes will happen, but whether leagues at every level can create systems that prioritize consistency, transparency and trust.
