February 3, 2026 • 18 mins
Mo sat down with CBS NFL Rules Analyst Gene Steratore to talk officiating and more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ron Harper yesterday. Go listen to it right now, or
wait till six o'clock on the iHeartRadio app. Or wait
till after six o'clock because the Euhanius Horiaz and n
Crawl are going to be on the Red Hot Stove
League down my home. Let's see, this was on Friday.
I was invited in. The folks at Elder High School
always kind enough to invite me to their annual sports
(00:21):
tag and the featured guest the speaker this year was
Jean's Territor, who's obviously the NFL rules analyst for CBS.
Longtime NFL official worked a Super Bowl as last game
was the Super Bowl, the Philly Special Super Bowl where
Philly beat New England. Longtime men's college basketball official officiated
lots of NCAA tournament games.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
He was the featured speaker.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
He was awesome, and Gene was nice enough to make
himself available for an interview, and the folks at Elder
High School were kind enough to give me a room
to kind of go into the back and sit down
with him and make it happen. And so I'm deeply
appreciative of both. I through no work of mine, this
is more a reflection of the guest. I think this
(01:04):
is a good conversation. I think you'll enjoy it. Here's
my conversation with Jeene's territor. I want you to tell
me what a typical regular season Sunday game day is
like for the rules analysts.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Pull back the curtain for me.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, Well, in the NFL, I can tell you it's
a little unique in my position, and I think with
Dean Blandy, you know, Mike Prayer on the Fox side,
they live in that same area that I do. One
o'clock window and CBS five NFL games going on at
the same time. So picture three different televisions that are
attributed to each.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Game, lined up on a big wall in a room.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So you're looking at about eighteen to twenty one forty
five inch screens stacked on top of each other, and
you're trying to navigate the games, are seeing snaps. I
have officials, retired officials, college officials in the studio working
watching each an individual game. But truthfully, that one o'clock
window with multiple games is trying to watch as many
(02:00):
snaps as you can as they may go off differently
than the previous game. To digest plays, and then inevitably
it happens, right, Gene, there's a review in Cleveland, So
immediately leave the huge wall of twenty one screens turned
to the studio, to the other three major screens, which
is an EVS screen that I manipulate with an operator
(02:21):
to be relooking at the player rewinding it naturally, the
broadcast live feed, and then a feed that actually faces
the referee, who's probably in a review at that time.
So for television's sake, you're not speaking over and you
time things correctly, and then really you probably have fifteen
to twenty seconds to try to dissect hopefully a couple
of replays, get ready to go on air. Remember what
(02:44):
city you're in, Know what announcers are on the game,
if you're really on a roll, both players involved in
the play, get their names right, Digest all of those
things in that first ten seconds while you're watching two
or three replays, and then hope to be able to
digest enough by that point to get into the game live,
be brought into that game, and then maybe speak to
(03:07):
a replay or too, prior to the referee making his announcement.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
What is it like?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And I'm sure this has happened, though not that frequently.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
There's two replay issues at the same time at two
separate games.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, it's happened. It happens a little more frequently than
you may believe. But in the event that that occurs,
you don't get told while you're on live TV doing
the first one, usually that hey, there's another review in
the other game. But you can feel it. So you
may hear from a producer either on location or my
producer in ref studio, or there's a beautiful card that
(03:41):
goes right up in front of your face that says,
wrap this one up as quick as you can. So
then you try to cut out of that and then
you literally morph into that next game as quickly as
possible to doing all the things I just prefaced prior
to that, and then hoping that you can get in
to be at least some element of making production a
little better.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
You and your role. You've got to be critical at times.
You've got to be critical of men. You know, men
you've worked with. You ever hear back from them?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, and you know what, not really and I don't.
I mean I know that.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
How the social world works, right because Sterotor agrees with
the refs all the time. He's a stamp for the NFL,
and whatever they say he agrees with. That's really not
the case. I would tell you I've never done the
raw percentages. I bet it's in eighty twenty. You know,
eighty percent of the time I'm watching the plays. I
may not agree that it was really a quality kind
of file for past interference, right, but by the book,
(04:34):
it's past interference. So you live in that world as well. Hey, Geno,
is that passive aference?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah? It is. Is it something that you want called
every play?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Not?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Probably not, But that's not your role all the time
to do those. And I'll say this, just from being
an official for so long, we've been criticized our whole
lives from multiple places, right, I mean, coaches, ex officials,
now analysts. A great official, they make mistakes, you own it.
There are different opinions on plays. But when you miss
(05:06):
one and miss one and look, it happens. And I've
had it happen many times in basketball where you're work
in one of the March Madness games and you just
see a hit on the arm and the official missed it.
If ball falls three feet short, hey, let's bring in
gene yes, gene yes, guys, he missed it. If he
had the luxury to look at it two more times
like I did, or his angle was a little better,
(05:26):
I think there'd be a different decision on the play.
I mean, I think there's something to be said for
being transparent. You want to be credible, you want to
offer insight, hopefully, but when it's.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
A miss, it's a miss. And I think good officials understand.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
That where your role, I think his most beneficial is
not so much they got it right, they got it wrong.
I like it whether it's in men's college basketball or
in the NFL. I like it when a rule is
explained and I think it helps the viewer. Is there
in the NFL in football, is there a rule that
you believe fans misunderstand or miss in turn?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But more than the others, I.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Think the most difficult thing we're all challenged with no
pun intended right now in the NFL is the subjectivity
of when.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Does it catch and what is a catch? What is
in a catch, which ironically has paralleled.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
My career since Calvin Johnson's play through, Des Bryant's play through,
Zach Ertz's play in the Super Bowl was my last game,
all of them had catches, And even in the last
couple of weeks here, as we've watched and enjoyed the
NFL postseason interception catch, no catch, those types of plays continue.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
To fall through.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I think analysts, me personally and my collective peers in
these positions, the NFL needs to do a little better
job maybe in explaining some of that nuance. Is when
does the possession of a foot pass become a legitimate
catch and why as an upright receiver who possesses a
football different than a player who possesses a football in
(06:55):
the air and when he lands on the ground.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Starts to fall.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And then I think, really from the officiating side of it,
which I think is another conversation that needs to be
taking place. And along with television, technology continues to grow
and get better. We continue to have now two hundred
frames a second in stead of thirty two when I
was a kid. Sometimes we're slowing these down so far
that reality becomes distorted, and I think there's that window
(07:21):
where we can all see freeze frames of all this
was done, or they slowed it down so much it
appeared he just had possession, when if you go back
and watch it in real time. It wasn't even an
eighth of a second, right, So I think there's something
that needs to be done there. Not for credibility's sake
as much because I understand it. It's the conveying of it,
not convincing the public about it, but maybe educating.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
It in a little more way. And that's digestible. Right.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The saying always has been if ninety nine people in
the bar are looking at the play and tell you
it's this, that it should be that. Okay, So whatever
you do when you're framing or your analysis, it should
so come out to that answer.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
That's the hope. And there's some challenges in that.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
You mentioned your last game was the Philly Special super Bowl, right,
so this week is the Super Bowl. I've talked with
players and coaches about what it's like to be in
that game. They'll say it's just another football game once
it starts. But the week leading up to it as
an official, is there anything different than you know, hey,
it's Week nineteen Bengals at Browns.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
The shock that in my case, with the big Italian
family funding twenty two tickets.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
For the NFL and.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Then realizing I had to work an entire basketball season
to pay for the tickets. But I just got from
my family, along with their hotels and travel once that
shock settled down. Now, listen and I appreciate what they say,
and I think sometimes, yes, it is just week nineteen,
but that doesn't happen. At least it didn't happen for
me until we kicked the ball off. When the ball
(08:50):
kicked off, we were back into the rhythms of what
it meant to referee, produce, manage, and navigate through a
three three hour NFL football game. That doesn't change pretty
much for the sake of the game and the essence
of what you do.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
But I think you would be wrong.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
To tell yourself that it was just another game the
week before when your crew got to that city that
we all love to see.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
As this next week's coming up now Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, they're not normal Wednesdays through Saturday.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Don't pretend they are.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I always decided that it was best to let the
crew know that feeling when we got to the super
Bowl city that no, this isn't normal for these next
three days. But within that moment, we still have to
go through the processes that we were doing on Wednesday,
Thursday Friday when we were home zooming, doing our player
team tendencies or individual matchups, breaking down the playlist the
(09:46):
football of what we were about to see, but also
embracing the fact that, look at your human one hundred
and forty plus million people are going to watch this
football game, right.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I know, as CBS we've been really fortunate.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
We broke the cold for most viewership in a Thanksgiving
game this year. We had the most viewership for the
Christmas game, most viewership just last week for the AFC Championship.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
That's fifty million, the Super Bowls three times.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
That you have to embrace the fact that if I
do make a mistake in this game, there are one
hundred and fifty million people that do care right as
opposed to maybe a different week.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And I don't think that's a bad thing.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
I think that's just enhancing your level of awareness about
what you're about to go into. It humbles you, but
it also prepares you. So I don't think that you
shy away from that and deny that. I have a
few more You've been awesome with your time.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I hear people when they talk about the state of
NFL officiating, and I think largely the concerns are overblown.
But when people express hey, officiating needs to be better,
the go to solution as always make them full time employees.
And my response to that is always like, all right,
what's the job security?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
If I miss a call them, I have out of
a gig. So from your perspective, when you hear hey,
make them full time employees, what do you say in response?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I was an NFL official for fifteen years of my life,
and as an NFL referee for thirteen of those years,
I spent twenty to thirty hours a week preparing for
next Sunday's game.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I can't prepare any more. Full time or part time.
That's what I did.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I also did referee for call these basketball games during
those weeks.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
That doesn't mean I wasn't preparing.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
It just meant that I was in a hotel somewhere
at noon getting ready for Michigan State playing Indiana, and
for three hours of that six hours prior to the
basketball game, I was breaking film down. NFL officials collectively
are putting that amount of time in every week through
their zooms, through their preparations, through their study habits. You
also can't get better at officiating unless you were seeing
(11:38):
live action.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
The NFL doesn't play all year round.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
It's not like basketball where we can have full contact
camps that simulate gameplay somewhat like we can in the
basketball space, where it kind of does navigate for ten months.
I'm not a proponent of the full time either, because
if you think about it, it would limit the amount
of people that would go into it. When would you
have to declare that you want to be an NFL
(12:02):
ref right at twenty six, three years out of college,
you got married at thirty, you're working major college football,
aspiring to be and then they come calling, and now
you have to give up the job that has the
benefits and all of that, and, as you said, the
job of security. So I don't think that's the answer.
I think there's a look, you got to get better.
(12:24):
You got to make sure that you have a good
foundation of a lot of major college football experience.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I would think in most.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Cases understanding there's always the exception. But just like the players,
ninety percent of our players come from the Power five conferences,
ninety percent of our officials should probably come out of
that same space.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I hear all the time. They should be younger, they
should be able to run better.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Don't ever forget that in this business, experience is the
most valuable tool you.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Can ever have.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
A young official getting in the NFL, in my humble opinion,
should probably be in their late thirties. That means that
they started too in their mid twenties, and they went
through the small college space into the major college space,
build a foundation of experience and a lot of in
game experience only to get to the platform at that
next level, which quite frankly, I worked five years in.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The Big East.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Through the Big East is sayday with Michael Vick Miami's resurgence.
I thought I was prepped, and I was, I think,
but I wasn't prepped for what I saw that next Sunday.
That next year, what they did on Sundays looked like
a different sport in some ways than what I just realized.
I had worked for five years of major college So
I think there's a lot to that.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
The scrutiny they're under, the technology.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
You're under the replays, assisting them and being a safety
net on plays that maybe aren't forcing them to work
at their craft at a higher level.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Those are conversations for the future.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
As a college basketball fan, I love and I'm lucky
I sit up close working Cincinnati broadcast, but I love
to watch the interplay between the coaches and the officials.
It's got to be more fun than the NFL guys, right,
because there's more officials, there's more space. I think an
NFL head coach just has a little bit more going on.
Walk me through. Maybe the difference is in working the
(14:03):
college basketball coaches in the NFL.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I can look when people say, do you miss it collectively? No,
I don't because, as you know, traveling travel, you never
miss sleep deprivation, You never miss your body aging and
not being able to keep up with the next wave
of young athletes. You don't miss. What I miss is
what you just said. It's the in real game time,
(14:27):
high intensity, high pressure management of personalities that are acting
out of character with a high intensity level for the
right reasons. Not always diffusing it, but navigating it and
managing not just that coach in that specific instance, but
a lot of times players in real time. Look, when
you get to the levels of UC basketball or NFL football,
(14:47):
there's no fist bumping that goes on with refs because
they got to play right.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You're supposed to get to play right.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
The fun begins when you got to play right and
the coach is treating you like you miss the biggest
player in the world and you got it right, Like,
how do you navigate that? That to me was the
art of the game. That's what I missed. That's what
I loved. That's what I will never, never not love
about what I did. The difference in basketball, and you're right,
the proximities are so tight they can get to you
(15:13):
much quicker.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In hoops, they were wild and knew.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
They had a little more leniency sometimes in college basketball
than the NBA too, But in the NFL there was
a lot of that happening with the players. So there's
a lot happening on that field that you don't get
to see. But basketball is that closer proximity. I always
mastered the art of putting my hand over my mouth
when I had that conversation, for protection for what may
(15:39):
come out of my mouth and also for any good
lip readers, which I am now because I'm a little
bit hard of hearing at.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
This point of my life.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
But I always protected myself in that regard.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
But man, being at uc mix.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Said some things to me that I don't know that
I would allow to happen if we were just in
a regular setting like this. But on the core it
was not only acceptable, Uh, you knew it was coming,
so it was a great thing, and that we all
knew that we all knew the playing field we were on,
so it was no surprise.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I would always get a kick out of with him specifically,
but others the three officials come out or by shaking
hands or three minutes later, it's you know you're getting
dawcust one more because I've always wanted to ask somebody
who's officiated to the highest level of this question. It's
a simple one. Is there a such thing as a
make good call?
Speaker 3 (16:29):
No, and there can't be because you go down the
rabbit hole. Two wrongs never make a right. The only
way you handle a miss which happened, they're going to
continue to happen.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It's an imperfect world. You own the miss.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
If you feel really good about where you are in
your credibility and relationship, you get to that coach and
you let him or her know I kicked this one. Okay,
I can't go back, but we're not going to live
in that space anymore. If you go down the rabbit
hole like man, we called a nickel dimer.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
On this end of the court, we need to hatchet
over there.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
You're playing with such fire right now that the game
and yourself runs into a much different difficulty. If life
were that way, we would be in a much better space. Right.
I'm wrong, I'm sorry, but it has to end right
at that point, and as a ref you hope that
confronting that.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Can put an end.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I will also tell you full transparency, it wasn't the
best answer.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Always for the coach. And three minutes later he's still
told you about to play you miss.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Five minutes before, even though he promised that he wouldn't,
he still did and that was okay too.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
All Right, there you go. Jean's territor CBS Sports, NFL
and college football rules analysts more of the NFL than college,
but you do occasionally hear him.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
On a college broadcast.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And I only know that because on Friday he told
me thanks to the folks at Elder High School for
helping to make that happen. You'll hear a u Haaneosuarez
and Nick Crawl next. Since ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
From the UCE Health Traffic Center. Trust of the experts
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never miss a beat your heart shouldn't either. Schedule online
at ucehealth dot com. Northbound seventy one and Deerfield Road,
it is an accident that when blocking off the right
lane a little bit of slow traffic back from Fifer Road,
not seeing any substantial delays, though in southbound seventy five
(18:27):
more construction work between Ronald Reagan Highway and the Norwood
Lateral on that ezelic with traffic.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
This report is
Ron Harper yesterday. Go listen to it right now, or
wait till six o'clock on the iHeartRadio app. Or wait
till after six o'clock because the Euhanius Horiaz and n
Crawl are going to be on the Red Hot Stove
League down my home. Let's see, this was on Friday.
I was invited in. The folks at Elder High School
always kind enough to invite me to their annual sports
(00:21):
tag and the featured guest the speaker this year was
Jean's Territor, who's obviously the NFL rules analyst for CBS.
Longtime NFL official worked a Super Bowl as last game
was the Super Bowl, the Philly Special Super Bowl where
Philly beat New England. Longtime men's college basketball official officiated
lots of NCAA tournament games.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
He was the featured speaker.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
He was awesome, and Gene was nice enough to make
himself available for an interview, and the folks at Elder
High School were kind enough to give me a room
to kind of go into the back and sit down
with him and make it happen. And so I'm deeply
appreciative of both. I through no work of mine, this
is more a reflection of the guest. I think this
(01:04):
is a good conversation. I think you'll enjoy it. Here's
my conversation with Jeene's territor. I want you to tell
me what a typical regular season Sunday game day is
like for the rules analysts.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Pull back the curtain for me.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, Well, in the NFL, I can tell you it's
a little unique in my position, and I think with
Dean Blandy, you know, Mike Prayer on the Fox side,
they live in that same area that I do. One
o'clock window and CBS five NFL games going on at
the same time. So picture three different televisions that are
attributed to each.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Game, lined up on a big wall in a room.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So you're looking at about eighteen to twenty one forty
five inch screens stacked on top of each other, and
you're trying to navigate the games, are seeing snaps. I
have officials, retired officials, college officials in the studio working
watching each an individual game. But truthfully, that one o'clock
window with multiple games is trying to watch as many
(02:00):
snaps as you can as they may go off differently
than the previous game. To digest plays, and then inevitably
it happens, right, Gene, there's a review in Cleveland, So
immediately leave the huge wall of twenty one screens turned
to the studio, to the other three major screens, which
is an EVS screen that I manipulate with an operator
(02:21):
to be relooking at the player rewinding it naturally, the
broadcast live feed, and then a feed that actually faces
the referee, who's probably in a review at that time.
So for television's sake, you're not speaking over and you
time things correctly, and then really you probably have fifteen
to twenty seconds to try to dissect hopefully a couple
of replays, get ready to go on air. Remember what
(02:44):
city you're in, Know what announcers are on the game,
if you're really on a roll, both players involved in
the play, get their names right, Digest all of those
things in that first ten seconds while you're watching two
or three replays, and then hope to be able to
digest enough by that point to get into the game live,
be brought into that game, and then maybe speak to
(03:07):
a replay or too, prior to the referee making his announcement.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
What is it like?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And I'm sure this has happened, though not that frequently.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
There's two replay issues at the same time at two
separate games.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, it's happened. It happens a little more frequently than
you may believe. But in the event that that occurs,
you don't get told while you're on live TV doing
the first one, usually that hey, there's another review in
the other game. But you can feel it. So you
may hear from a producer either on location or my
producer in ref studio, or there's a beautiful card that
(03:41):
goes right up in front of your face that says,
wrap this one up as quick as you can. So
then you try to cut out of that and then
you literally morph into that next game as quickly as
possible to doing all the things I just prefaced prior
to that, and then hoping that you can get in
to be at least some element of making production a
little better.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
You and your role. You've got to be critical at times.
You've got to be critical of men. You know, men
you've worked with. You ever hear back from them?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, and you know what, not really and I don't.
I mean I know that.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
How the social world works, right because Sterotor agrees with
the refs all the time. He's a stamp for the NFL,
and whatever they say he agrees with. That's really not
the case. I would tell you I've never done the
raw percentages. I bet it's in eighty twenty. You know,
eighty percent of the time I'm watching the plays. I
may not agree that it was really a quality kind
of file for past interference, right, but by the book,
(04:34):
it's past interference. So you live in that world as well. Hey, Geno,
is that passive aference?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah? It is. Is it something that you want called
every play?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Not?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Probably not, But that's not your role all the time
to do those. And I'll say this, just from being
an official for so long, we've been criticized our whole
lives from multiple places, right, I mean, coaches, ex officials,
now analysts. A great official, they make mistakes, you own it.
There are different opinions on plays. But when you miss
(05:06):
one and miss one and look, it happens. And I've
had it happen many times in basketball where you're work
in one of the March Madness games and you just
see a hit on the arm and the official missed it.
If ball falls three feet short, hey, let's bring in
gene yes, gene yes, guys, he missed it. If he
had the luxury to look at it two more times
like I did, or his angle was a little better,
(05:26):
I think there'd be a different decision on the play.
I mean, I think there's something to be said for
being transparent. You want to be credible, you want to
offer insight, hopefully, but when it's.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
A miss, it's a miss. And I think good officials understand.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
That where your role, I think his most beneficial is
not so much they got it right, they got it wrong.
I like it whether it's in men's college basketball or
in the NFL. I like it when a rule is
explained and I think it helps the viewer. Is there
in the NFL in football, is there a rule that
you believe fans misunderstand or miss in turn?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
But more than the others, I.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Think the most difficult thing we're all challenged with no
pun intended right now in the NFL is the subjectivity
of when.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Does it catch and what is a catch? What is
in a catch, which ironically has paralleled.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
My career since Calvin Johnson's play through, Des Bryant's play through,
Zach Ertz's play in the Super Bowl was my last game,
all of them had catches, And even in the last
couple of weeks here, as we've watched and enjoyed the
NFL postseason interception catch, no catch, those types of plays continue.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
To fall through.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I think analysts, me personally and my collective peers in
these positions, the NFL needs to do a little better
job maybe in explaining some of that nuance. Is when
does the possession of a foot pass become a legitimate
catch and why as an upright receiver who possesses a
football different than a player who possesses a football in
(06:55):
the air and when he lands on the ground.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Starts to fall.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And then I think, really from the officiating side of it,
which I think is another conversation that needs to be
taking place. And along with television, technology continues to grow
and get better. We continue to have now two hundred
frames a second in stead of thirty two when I
was a kid. Sometimes we're slowing these down so far
that reality becomes distorted, and I think there's that window
(07:21):
where we can all see freeze frames of all this
was done, or they slowed it down so much it
appeared he just had possession, when if you go back
and watch it in real time. It wasn't even an
eighth of a second, right, So I think there's something
that needs to be done there. Not for credibility's sake
as much because I understand it. It's the conveying of it,
not convincing the public about it, but maybe educating.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
It in a little more way. And that's digestible. Right.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The saying always has been if ninety nine people in
the bar are looking at the play and tell you
it's this, that it should be that. Okay, So whatever
you do when you're framing or your analysis, it should
so come out to that answer.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
That's the hope. And there's some challenges in that.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
You mentioned your last game was the Philly Special super Bowl, right,
so this week is the Super Bowl. I've talked with
players and coaches about what it's like to be in
that game. They'll say it's just another football game once
it starts. But the week leading up to it as
an official, is there anything different than you know, hey,
it's Week nineteen Bengals at Browns.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
The shock that in my case, with the big Italian
family funding twenty two tickets.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
For the NFL and.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Then realizing I had to work an entire basketball season
to pay for the tickets. But I just got from
my family, along with their hotels and travel once that
shock settled down. Now, listen and I appreciate what they say,
and I think sometimes, yes, it is just week nineteen,
but that doesn't happen. At least it didn't happen for
me until we kicked the ball off. When the ball
(08:50):
kicked off, we were back into the rhythms of what
it meant to referee, produce, manage, and navigate through a
three three hour NFL football game. That doesn't change pretty
much for the sake of the game and the essence
of what you do.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
But I think you would be wrong.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
To tell yourself that it was just another game the
week before when your crew got to that city that
we all love to see.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
As this next week's coming up now Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, they're not normal Wednesdays through Saturday.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Don't pretend they are.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
I always decided that it was best to let the
crew know that feeling when we got to the super
Bowl city that no, this isn't normal for these next
three days. But within that moment, we still have to
go through the processes that we were doing on Wednesday,
Thursday Friday when we were home zooming, doing our player
team tendencies or individual matchups, breaking down the playlist the
(09:46):
football of what we were about to see, but also
embracing the fact that, look at your human one hundred
and forty plus million people are going to watch this
football game, right.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I know, as CBS we've been really fortunate.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
We broke the cold for most viewership in a Thanksgiving
game this year. We had the most viewership for the
Christmas game, most viewership just last week for the AFC Championship.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
That's fifty million, the Super Bowls three times.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
That you have to embrace the fact that if I
do make a mistake in this game, there are one
hundred and fifty million people that do care right as
opposed to maybe a different week.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And I don't think that's a bad thing.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
I think that's just enhancing your level of awareness about
what you're about to go into. It humbles you, but
it also prepares you. So I don't think that you
shy away from that and deny that. I have a
few more You've been awesome with your time.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
I hear people when they talk about the state of
NFL officiating, and I think largely the concerns are overblown.
But when people express hey, officiating needs to be better,
the go to solution as always make them full time employees.
And my response to that is always like, all right,
what's the job security?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
If I miss a call them, I have out of
a gig. So from your perspective, when you hear hey,
make them full time employees, what do you say in response?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I was an NFL official for fifteen years of my life,
and as an NFL referee for thirteen of those years,
I spent twenty to thirty hours a week preparing for
next Sunday's game.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I can't prepare any more. Full time or part time.
That's what I did.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I also did referee for call these basketball games during
those weeks.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
That doesn't mean I wasn't preparing.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
It just meant that I was in a hotel somewhere
at noon getting ready for Michigan State playing Indiana, and
for three hours of that six hours prior to the
basketball game, I was breaking film down. NFL officials collectively
are putting that amount of time in every week through
their zooms, through their preparations, through their study habits. You
also can't get better at officiating unless you were seeing
(11:38):
live action.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
The NFL doesn't play all year round.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
It's not like basketball where we can have full contact
camps that simulate gameplay somewhat like we can in the
basketball space, where it kind of does navigate for ten months.
I'm not a proponent of the full time either, because
if you think about it, it would limit the amount
of people that would go into it. When would you
have to declare that you want to be an NFL
(12:02):
ref right at twenty six, three years out of college,
you got married at thirty, you're working major college football,
aspiring to be and then they come calling, and now
you have to give up the job that has the
benefits and all of that, and, as you said, the
job of security. So I don't think that's the answer.
I think there's a look, you got to get better.
(12:24):
You got to make sure that you have a good
foundation of a lot of major college football experience.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I would think in most.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Cases understanding there's always the exception. But just like the players,
ninety percent of our players come from the Power five conferences,
ninety percent of our officials should probably come out of
that same space.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I hear all the time. They should be younger, they
should be able to run better.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Don't ever forget that in this business, experience is the
most valuable tool you.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Can ever have.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
A young official getting in the NFL, in my humble opinion,
should probably be in their late thirties. That means that
they started too in their mid twenties, and they went
through the small college space into the major college space,
build a foundation of experience and a lot of in
game experience only to get to the platform at that
next level, which quite frankly, I worked five years in.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The Big East.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Through the Big East is sayday with Michael Vick Miami's resurgence.
I thought I was prepped, and I was, I think,
but I wasn't prepped for what I saw that next Sunday.
That next year, what they did on Sundays looked like
a different sport in some ways than what I just realized.
I had worked for five years of major college So
I think there's a lot to that.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
The scrutiny they're under, the technology.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
You're under the replays, assisting them and being a safety
net on plays that maybe aren't forcing them to work
at their craft at a higher level.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Those are conversations for the future.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
As a college basketball fan, I love and I'm lucky
I sit up close working Cincinnati broadcast, but I love
to watch the interplay between the coaches and the officials.
It's got to be more fun than the NFL guys, right,
because there's more officials, there's more space. I think an
NFL head coach just has a little bit more going on.
Walk me through. Maybe the difference is in working the
(14:03):
college basketball coaches in the NFL.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
I can look when people say, do you miss it collectively? No,
I don't because, as you know, traveling travel, you never
miss sleep deprivation, You never miss your body aging and
not being able to keep up with the next wave
of young athletes. You don't miss. What I miss is
what you just said. It's the in real game time,
(14:27):
high intensity, high pressure management of personalities that are acting
out of character with a high intensity level for the
right reasons. Not always diffusing it, but navigating it and
managing not just that coach in that specific instance, but
a lot of times players in real time. Look, when
you get to the levels of UC basketball or NFL football,
(14:47):
there's no fist bumping that goes on with refs because
they got to play right.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You're supposed to get to play right.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
The fun begins when you got to play right and
the coach is treating you like you miss the biggest
player in the world and you got it right, Like,
how do you navigate that? That to me was the
art of the game. That's what I missed. That's what
I loved. That's what I will never, never not love
about what I did. The difference in basketball, and you're right,
the proximities are so tight they can get to you
(15:13):
much quicker.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In hoops, they were wild and knew.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
They had a little more leniency sometimes in college basketball
than the NBA too, But in the NFL there was
a lot of that happening with the players. So there's
a lot happening on that field that you don't get
to see. But basketball is that closer proximity. I always
mastered the art of putting my hand over my mouth
when I had that conversation, for protection for what may
(15:39):
come out of my mouth and also for any good
lip readers, which I am now because I'm a little
bit hard of hearing at.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
This point of my life.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
But I always protected myself in that regard.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
But man, being at uc mix.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Said some things to me that I don't know that
I would allow to happen if we were just in
a regular setting like this. But on the core it
was not only acceptable, Uh, you knew it was coming,
so it was a great thing, and that we all
knew that we all knew the playing field we were on,
so it was no surprise.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
I would always get a kick out of with him specifically,
but others the three officials come out or by shaking
hands or three minutes later, it's you know you're getting
dawcust one more because I've always wanted to ask somebody
who's officiated to the highest level of this question. It's
a simple one. Is there a such thing as a
make good call?
Speaker 3 (16:29):
No, and there can't be because you go down the
rabbit hole. Two wrongs never make a right. The only
way you handle a miss which happened, they're going to
continue to happen.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
It's an imperfect world. You own the miss.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
If you feel really good about where you are in
your credibility and relationship, you get to that coach and
you let him or her know I kicked this one. Okay,
I can't go back, but we're not going to live
in that space anymore. If you go down the rabbit
hole like man, we called a nickel dimer.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
On this end of the court, we need to hatchet
over there.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
You're playing with such fire right now that the game
and yourself runs into a much different difficulty. If life
were that way, we would be in a much better space. Right.
I'm wrong, I'm sorry, but it has to end right
at that point, and as a ref you hope that
confronting that.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Can put an end.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I will also tell you full transparency, it wasn't the
best answer.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Always for the coach. And three minutes later he's still
told you about to play you miss.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Five minutes before, even though he promised that he wouldn't,
he still did and that was okay too.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
All Right, there you go. Jean's territor CBS Sports, NFL
and college football rules analysts more of the NFL than college,
but you do occasionally hear him.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
On a college broadcast.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And I only know that because on Friday he told
me thanks to the folks at Elder High School for
helping to make that happen. You'll hear a u Haaneosuarez
and Nick Crawl next. Since ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
From the UCE Health Traffic Center. Trust of the experts
at you See Health for innovative and personalized heartcare. They
never miss a beat your heart shouldn't either. Schedule online
at ucehealth dot com. Northbound seventy one and Deerfield Road,
it is an accident that when blocking off the right
lane a little bit of slow traffic back from Fifer Road,
not seeing any substantial delays, though in southbound seventy five
(18:27):
more construction work between Ronald Reagan Highway and the Norwood
Lateral on that ezelic with traffic.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
This report is
Mo Egger News
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