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Game time. Hey everybody, glad to be with you for another week of What the Football. Susie and Amy, you can follow us at at WT Football Podcast on Instagram. We've got a Twitter account but I don't even babysit it so I mean get it out there.
You're the one who's going to find it on Twitter as well. But we are thrilled to have Mike Ferreira joining us, the Fox Sports NFL and college football rules expert coming up with us very shortly. But Amy, let's start today with Anthony Richardson. It's been reported, Adam Schefter of course, reporting that he's been benched in favor of Joe Flacco for this game coming up this weekend against the Vikings. Obviously, the big conversation is he tapped his helmet saying he had to come out and rest, saying that he was tired after a big hit going down. And Amy, it's so interesting, my gut reaction to this as a reporter who spends so much time on the sidelines is something else is going on. The immediate response has been from players, from analysts, he can't do that, he's immature, he set a bad example for the other guys who are out there on the field saying, you know, I'm still tired, I'm out here fighting and you're going to go take a rest.
I'm curious on your thoughts to this. I've never really seen a player tap and say I need to come out a player or two to get my breath and go back in. You know, I was racking my brain as well after we learned of his tapping out during the game and I can't recall that either. But as to why he is being benched, if in fact that happens, and as you noted, Adam has reported that he is being benched.
It can be not just for one reason, but for many reasons. He did tap out and that would not go over well in a locker room, but he's also been struggling. He has four touchdowns and seven interceptions. I can even do that math. That's almost twice as many interceptions as touchdowns and he's fumbled the league high six times. His completion rate is, I think, 44.4%. My point being, people want to say, well, if he's benched, is it because he tapped out or is it because he's not playing well? Well, the answer could be both and I'll throw in a third factor. There's a lot of people who believed he should not yet be starting given his limited play in college. So I think all three things can be factors. Yeah, I mean, it's funny.
The question is, is he, if he is being benched, is he being benched for being honest? Have we come to that in the NFL? And I don't think we're quite there yet. I also wonder, there's a part of my spidey sense that feels like there's more to this than we realize. Well, and you may be right because I do like your spidey sense and I like my spidey sense.
Spidey sense is good. You may well be right. But people generally want to point to one reason.
Why is he being benched? And you know what? Let me tell you the way these discussions go on within an organization. Coaches will contribute to the discussion. General managers and football personnel will contribute to the discussion. Business operations will contribute to the discussion.
And my strong view is it's often a number of factors that will contribute to a decision like this. Yeah, this kid had one full season starting in college. Thirteen career starts in his college career and I'm just looking at his numbers in the NFL in his rookie season. Four starts, he missed 13 of those final games to shoulder surgery. Six starts, missing two games with the knee in 2024. It could also be with the Vikings coming up that Shane Steichen likes the idea of having Joe Flacco there, who did come in and played great last year and also is that veteran arm and that veteran head. The question is, since they did choose to start Anthony Richardson in the last couple of years and since he's out there, does it hinder his development to sit him or do they have to keep playing him now to push him forward because he hasn't played that much in the last two years?
That's a great question and I think the answer is a very, very strong, it depends. How engaged do they keep him on the sideline during the games? How are they using him in practice? How are they helping him develop not during live action?
Yes, he needs to play in games to continue to develop. But you know what, taking a breath may actually be the best thing for him right now. It also may be the best thing for the team. And I tend to view things that multiple factors go into a decision.
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Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash Amex Business. As promised, Mike Pereira joins us on What the Football. Mike, we have a wonderful storied history.
We could teach a lot of people how to disagree vehemently and vigorously, yet agreeably. So thank you for joining us today. Now, Suzy and I have questions for you. Our followers have questions for you. And I'm going to start with one.
During your years in the control room, who was your favorite NFL executive who contacted you regularly throughout games to point out every single officiating issue? Leading the witness. Come on. Oh, Suzy. That's your line. Leading the witness there, Aime. You know what? That was well done, counselor.
Well done. But really, who was your favorite league executive to hear from about officiating gaffes when you were in the control room? Should it be is that an appropriate question? Should it be favorite or should it be first? Hold on.
Let me let me re-ask. OK, Mike, which league executive tortured you the most so that when you heard that the phone was ringing in the back row, you kind of already knew who it was? Well, let me let me state my answer a little bit differently than you asked the question, because we always had a pool going in the in our command center in New York. And the pool was any time a call went against the Raiders, it was how many seconds was it going to be before Amy Trask call? And so we had it would be every time every time there was a call, everybody 22 seconds, 15. I don't think this one's that bad. Well, this one might be a minute five and and then we would get it.
We'd award the winner who was the closest. I used to not hear from executives really until Tuesday morning when I first started out. But then when Amy and I got to know each other. Yes, it did go down to second. So she was I got to say it ended up being my favorite and my first. I can't I can't differentiate between the two. Well, Mike, I'm going to let Susie jump into some questions initially, but I'm glad I was both the first and the favorite. And I really do love that we disagreed with one another so passionately, yet we did so agreeably. I think I do. I think it's very interesting. There's so little accord these days so that you guys were able to have that flow and have that discord at the same time without wanting to kill each other. It says a lot about both of your personalities.
Mike, I want to get right into it. If you don't mind, a lot of people are wondering what happened on Thursday with that face mask with Sam Jarnold in the end zone. What did you see? Well, I saw that there was a face mask and I kind of felt guilty. Why would I feel guilty?
And the reason I feel guilty is because really nobody had a good look at it. The two people that would be responsible for it are the referee and the umpire who were both behind the quarterback and so did not see when the flag was when the mask was initially grabbed. Now, why are they both behind and not somebody in front in the umpire's old position who would have been looking right at that. But in 2010, when I left, I kind of gave the umpires a present. I moved them out of the defensive side of the ball and moved them into the offensive side because I was getting so many guys hurt, so many umpires hurt, crossing routes, all this.
And they were using umpires as a pick. And so I moved them. And I'm still happy with the move, but it will haunt you once in a while in a situation like this.
Look, you've got to find a way to make the call. You don't want to make an excuse. But there was a reason. And maybe that's the reason why they look at it in the offseason. And if there is something flagrant like that, then maybe they can use replay to correct that.
I'm actually leaning in that direction and hope they do because I'm partly responsible. But it's a shame. I mean, still the Vikings had to go, right? They had to go what would have been, I think, 82 yards and they would have had to get a two-point conversion. But you hate that conversation to be there when it was so obvious that there was a foul that wasn't called. And, you know, an interesting footnote to that, because Mike is, of course, right, this is going to be looked at in the offseason by the league. The Rams have been quite vocal about wanting replay for that sort of incident. And had the Rams been successful in advocating for replay of a face mask or non-face mask call, it would have gone against them. So be careful what you wish for.
You might get it. Yeah, you know what's interesting, too, Amy and Susie, is the fact that replay is already growing during the season. I mean, because things are happening. If you remember the Jets game where there was a face mask call, uh-oh, against the wrong team. They picked the wrong team. And so it got penalized wrong. Competition committee met with the NFL officiating department and they said, OK, this is something that is objective.
There's no subjectivity to this. It's either one team or the other. So they have now allowed for that to use a replay assist if that were to happen again. And so this this what George Young used to call a monster replay, this is growing before our eyes. And I'm not going to be surprised if we don't see more and more each year that replay begins to become a part of. So why are there any limitations to replay assist? Well, I mean, I just think for one thing, you start to worry about, you know, the length of the game and the number of stops and the number of corrections that get made. And, you know, corrections are one thing when it's a down, when it's a clock, those things are so objective, you know, even in replay. If we were to take the play from Thursday night and put that in replay and allow an assist, now the assist guy has to think, look, this was really obvious that this one. But what about the ones that are marginal? There used to be five yard face masks, minor face masks that weren't penalized 15, only five. We got rid of that, as did college, because it was so subjective. Are we now going to have a replay official or New York trying to make a determination?
Yes, it's a face mask, but is it enough? There's those elements that have to be worked out, but they'll get there, Suzy. I mean, if you call, this one snuck in on us this year, if you call roughing the passer for a hit to the header neck area and replay sees that actually there was no contact to the header neck area, it was all chest, they can jump in and take that off. So we're going to see it expand until we have what I was an advocate for, until we have the sky judge that can make immediate corrections when they see something so obvious and take it out of the hands of replay. That's what I would like to see. Just give them a person, give each crew a person who sits in a booth at a stadium, gets to see the replay right away and gets to make more corrections just if he was the eighth official on the field. Like they have in college, they have eight officials, only seven in the NFL. It's just technology will continue to grow and so will the system to where we will see more of it. I mean, the technology for replay now, I feel like I'm in a Star Wars movie, you know, I mean, it's just like it's a combination of Big Brother, you're seeing Sky Judge above and what have you. And I think what you said that was interesting to me was it'll be looked at in the offseason.
But if you're a Vikings fan now, you want retribution. And I think that's why people get so frustrated with the refs. How do you balance what the fans want and the emotional reaction to these calls and having to review them later? Where's the balance there? Well, I mean, I don't know where the balance is, really. I mean, the fact is that this game is so hard to officiate, you know, we're all looking at it in slow motion when in fact those seven guys on the field and ladies on the field are doing it in real time. And it's never going to be perfect.
I mean, I say this and I actually believe this. I mean, within every play, there's at least 10 decisions that have to be made on the field by the officials. Is this a hold? Is it not a hold? Is the formation correct?
Is there illegal contact? Amy's in my favorite topic, by the way, is that they have all these decisions they have to make. And sometimes the things they don't call are more difficult than the ones that they do call. And so if you have 150 plays in a game, they have 1500 decisions they have to make. And they are good. I mean, they actually are right.
I mean, 90. I mean, they're going to make six or seven mistakes a game, which is not too bad when there's 1500 decisions. So sometimes we're going to have to accept the fact that they're not perfect and move on just like players are not perfect and coaches are not perfect. But yada, yada, yada, the officials are hold to a different standard. And I understand that, but I don't know that we want a game where there's going to be so many stops to look at so many things, at least my opinion.
I don't want that. And I think, you know, to your point about the job the officials do, I think something people often overlook is the size of the men on the field. You're being asked as an official to make a call when you've got enormous men that can be blocking anything from your vision.
So, you know, you've got to factor that in as well. Mike, I don't know if you remember this as well as I do, but I remember the league owners meeting you and I both attended. When Mike Holmgren stood up and said he liked the standard of if 20 people in a bar knew what the call should be, then that's what the call should be. In other words, is it clear and convincing and obvious? Should that be the standard for either a sky judge to insert him or herself or for replay assist? Yeah, it should be, Amy.
And I don't know how we've gotten to where we have gotten now where we're basically we're re officiating every play. And that was never the intent of replay. The intent was, as Mike said, that I then took it to 50 drunks in a bar. I remember that.
Oh, and by the way, you're absolutely right. I had recalled 50 guys. It is 50 drunks. That's right.
50 drunks in a bar. If they think it's a catch, then it ought to be a damn catch. But we make things so complicated that, you know, and again, I think that's where to me replay has done some good things. Yes. Okay. It's gotten more plays right. Okay.
I buy that. You know what it's done to me, though, in my mind? It's made the officiating worse. I mean, and that's a terrible thing for me to say.
I mean, because those are all my brothers are about that are out there. But it's become too much of a crutch for them. I mean, back in my day when I was on the field, albeit it was short, you had to make your own decisions. I mean, when you threw the flag for pass interference, you had to get that damn flag to the spot of the pass interference. You know, now the guy throws a flag and Big Brother comes on to fouls at the 32 yard line.
You go put the thing at the flag at the 32 yard line. It's just for the psyche of officials, I don't think it's really made them better. And maybe we shouldn't worry about that, I guess, if the fact that there's more calls that end up correctly being made through technology.
But I'm not really overly a fan of replay and what it's done to the game and do officiating. But it's here and it ain't going backwards. It's only going to go forward and it's only going to get bigger. And so we just have to accept that fact. But we also have to accept the fact that we can't do what Bill Belichick said, which is make everything reviewable, because he would say, you know, it's not going to add to the number of challenges.
Yes, it is going to add. I used to say, Bill, it is going to add to the number of challenges because coaches only challenge like, you know, they have less than one challenge per game that they use. So it's like point six or something. You let them challenge everything. And then to me, they will challenge everything knowing they're going to get it right. And now they get three challenges. So it's a slippery slope, however you look at it.
But it's it's quite the topic. You can't make every play challenge. Every single game would last three years. And we would have a good season. It would be awful. Has there been any discussion to implement SkyJudge for the playoffs this year?
No, no. I think look at the SkyJudge has been used in now the spring leagues. If you want to essentially call me a side judge or Dean Blandino a side judge, given us the right to interject ourselves immediately and on plays that can be corrected. It's the same rule of that would that it would be that I think that the committee discussed that they didn't like it. They want the game left on the field. Well, the game's no longer left on the field anyways, because I remember, Amy, when we first brought replay back in, Mike Holmgren said, OK, we'll go to replay. But only the referee can make the decision.
You know, we can't. Nobody can get any input. So even the replay official couldn't talk.
All he could do was show them the pictures. And then those seven guys on the field were responsible for making the decisions. Well, then it opened up and replay chimed in with their opinion to the referee. And now we're in New York and New York is is basically making the decisions in in New York. It's just that it's left the stadium. It's left the the the field, left the stadium. And now it's in New York.
And it's to me, it's just let's put it this way. I wouldn't want to be an official nowadays. Mike, a question about last night's game and it involves math. We all know the rule is two feet down in bounds. Last night, we saw someone get one foot down twice. Now, two feet is two feet. One foot plus one foot is two feet, even though they're not the same foot.
Would you change that rule or would you leave it the same? It has to be one of each. Would that be one of each foot or one of each feet? One of each feet. Well, you know what I mean? Would you leave the rule as it is one of each foot?
I don't know what you did. Each is singular. OK. Or would you change the rule so that if they got one foot down twice, that counts as two feet down? No, I'd leave it as both feet, both feet. Get both feet down. This is not college football where you only need to get one foot down. There is a certain skill that it takes to get two feet down and hop on one foot to get out of bounds. Isn't necessarily the skill that I think would be appropriate.
So I would leave it. It's interesting because we always look for that. You know, when I'm looking at plays and certainly when replays, they go, ah, there it is. You get the same foot down twice. That doesn't apply. And, you know, it's kind of we like to jumble up what is a catch and what's not a catch.
And the differences like between the college rule and the NFL rule. But no, I'm I'm a get them both down. Let's make sure that we can have that toe tap and not as Kelsey said after it.
Well, what do you do? The guy could skip, you know, 10 yards on one foot. Well, I'd like to see the guy do that.
That would be incredible. But as to your point about what is a catch, Lewis Murphy would like a word. You know, there are things we sometimes we just have to let go. We all right. All right. I said it with a smile on my face. I mean, now's not the right time to tie it to the talk.
Tuck rule, I guess. No. Oh, no. Let's move on. Come on. She looked at me like she wanted to murder me.
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George Kittle on Saturday Night Football. It looked like a pass interference, an offensive pass interference. And it looks like his teammates cleared out two defenders. Two flags went out. They picked them up and then touchdown stood.
What did you see there? Yeah, I agree with that. And the reason that I agree with picking up the flag was what you do look at is, if he is in contact with the defender when that collision occurs, does that defender have any influence over Kittle being able to go around? And if you look at it, that's why the flag was picked up. And I think even Terry McCauley said it was the right decision to pick the flag up, because if you're chucked in control by the defender, then basically he rode you into that collision.
So I think I think that was the proper pickup. I think I was also interested in how it got picked up, you know, because the two officials that would be both responsible, you know, for making that call both made the call. They both threw the flag and then all of a sudden they have the discussion and they pick it up, which I thought was very, very interesting. It's like another official had a view or did somebody say something in their ear?
I'm not quite sure. And nowadays, when you think back even a couple of weeks ago to Georgia, Texas, with the bottle throwing and all that stuff where the official changed his mind, you know, three minutes after he made the call for interference, you know, that's the other thing. And I am not a conspiracy person whatsoever, but, you know, transparency was always something that was a discussion in the NFL. And, you know, there was never any communication outside the seven officials on the field. There wasn't even any communication between the seven officials on the field. And then the idea came about, well, let's devise a system called Official to Official, O2O, and allow them to communicate with each other on the field.
Great idea. So if Amy Trask is on the sideline and says, why did that official on the other side of the field call the illegal contact, the official now instead of saying, well, wait until we have a timeout, I'll go across and ask him, now can immediately communicate. Amy wants to know why the illegal contact, because the contact was at seven yards. Okay, get the answer. Well, then it morphed into the replay assistant, you know, having that same communication with the officials. And then we joined in New York. And so it's like, who's talking to who anymore?
Nobody knows, which to me, although I'm not a conspiracy person, makes me think that there are enough people out there that would ask that same question with probably a little bit more conviction than I do. Mike, New Orleans, L.A. Chargers defender does what he does to Herbert. Chargers center goes in and protects his quarterback. If you were in charge of imposing fines for the league, would you find the defender? Would you find the center?
Would you find them both or would you find neither? Well, I would certainly find the tackler. And if I were the – this was my view of the play. If I were New York and I was the person that got to make the decision, which they can, with the flag being thrown on him for his action on Herbert, I would have disqualified him. I would have told the crew, which they can do, throw him out of the game. Would I have supported the penalty for his teammate? And then coming and knocking him off of the pile to get him off, would I have supported the flag? I would have because it's a second act and it is clearly a foul, but I would understand it enough to where I would never find him.
I would certainly take that all into consideration and that would be my feeling. I mean, I think any player who has any concern for his teammate would do the same thing. And so I always wish we could get the person that starts the thing with flags, but with the penalty.
But in this case, I see why they flagged him, but I sure hope they don't find him. Well, let me let you guys in on a little secret from the perspective of one who was in the business side of a team. I would have been extremely supportive of my center if he went in and did what the Charger Center did. And although teams are not allowed to pay fines for their players or to bonus them an amount equal to the fine, here's a little secret. Teams find a way to take care of players who are fined in that instance.
And by the way, I can share all this with you because the statute of limitations on me has run. If your player does what the Charger Center did and your player is fined, you know, maybe your player has a foundation or supports a certain charity, and then the team might just make a donation in that amount to the foundation or the charity or, oh, there he is at dinner, let me pick up the tab. Teams do have a way of supporting their players. And I think, too, some people don't realize, too, that fine money, fine money doesn't go to the league. Fine money goes to the charities that the Players Association and the league agree to support. But we've all known in the back of our minds that there were certain teams that were paying fines, you know, and I don't think the league ever pursued that. And we also know that from another competition committee member that there was a player who got fined frequently, who took a certain amount of money out of his contract and put it into a fund to pay his fines out even before the season started. Your name and names?
Come on, Mike, let's go on. I can't remember the player that Jeff Fisher told me it was. Have you noticed that there have been more targeting calls this season? Because, you know, you mentioned the college games. Curious about your thoughts. Yeah, there really seems like there have been, but there haven't been, you know, right now everybody thinks it's like out of control. Well, there's there's one ejection in about every five and a half games.
I don't think that's bad. I think I always support basically what what leagues, whether it's the NCAA or the NFL, I support what they're trying to do player safety wise. I mean, you're trying to protect players. And the problem, we can't just focus on the NFL when it comes to, you know, the protection, the head and neck area.
You're doing things. And then that college game does it. Then the high school game does it. I think it's important. But I also think that what the colleges started doing when they said with the targeting was making it an automatic ejection with no review.
I thought that was way too punitive. And at least now they get a second look that replay gets to take a look at it. And in college, they have to, like, re officiate the play. It has to be clear and obvious that it is targeting. So more flags have been thrown, but there hasn't necessarily been an increase in the number of ejections.
So it's it's it's always kind of interesting for me because in the college games I cover, I get brought into the discussion while they're looking at it. Are they going to? Are they not going to eject them?
And, you know, I look for things like crown of the helmet. You've got the guy that does the hitting needs to be looking straight down to the ground when he leads with the head. All of these things trying to keep there from being too many ejections. And I think with the number of ejections, one every five and a half games, I think I think it's OK where it is. What rule bugs you the most? That's a great question, Susie. You know, I mean, people ask me all the time, if you were commissioner, what's the one rule you would change?
Well, let's go back. I don't want to be commissioner. I have no desire to be commissioner for a day. But if you said if you were the head of the let's see if you were an owner that got to a chance to just change rule, what would it be? I get really frustrated by the pass interference rule.
And it might be different than other people that may or may not be frustrated with the rule. The way it stands in the NFL now, it's a spot foul no matter where it happens. I could care less about the pass interference. I shouldn't say I could care less, but I mean, I don't care as much about a mistakenly called pass interference penalty when it's seven yards downfield. When it's 40 yards downfield, I get really frustrated by that. It's a 40 yard chunk of free yardage and it happens. It's the hardest call in the field to make.
That was my position. Everybody's moving. The receiver's moving. The defender's moving. The ball's coming. Is it catchable? Is it not catchable?
You're moving. It's so hard to make that decision that to me, the college rule is better. It's a 15 yard penalty max.
And I was always an advocate and I would tell the committee that. And they would also kind of just say, go away, Pereira, please. We don't want to take away the deep vertical passing game. They're just going to tackle people. And then I go, do you ever watch football on Saturday?
Do you ever watch it? If a person's close enough to commit pass interference, he's trying to make the play. He's not reaching out and tackling the guy.
And I said, even give me this. We'll make it a spot foul if it's a deliberate non-football act. We'll do that.
But I could never get through or I could never get it even tried. And so that's the one rule I would change. Make it the same yardage as offensive pass interference, even though offensive pass interference is only 10 yards. And the defense could be much more than that.
But no, no. And just nothing used to gall me more than having to say a 45 yard pass interference penalty was incorrectly called and see that big chunk of free yards. So you don't think the NFL will ever change that then? I don't think they ever will.
I don't think they ever will. There is never any momentum to do that. The only the only momentum that ever occurred was when they tried to make it reviewable in replay. And that was an absolute disaster that failed the way that they set up that rule. It failed in the first quarter of the first preseason game that season because they tried to establish different standards of how they wanted the replay official to look at it.
So, yes, it was pass interference, but no, not enough for the replay official in New York to call. Well, what? What? Talk about making a gray area call quite a bit more gray. That was the way to ensure that it was never going to work. You either had to say it is pass interference or not pass interference, but they weren't willing to do that. And so I don't see in any time going forward where they'll do anything with it.
You know, Mike, I've been involved in these discussions for years as well. Should it be a spot foul? Should it be a 15 yard foul?
And I have never heard until this moment the creative solution you just offered, which is differentiate between pass interference. That's just a football act. You're covering the guy versus pass interference. That's an absolute blatant tackle or something that is not simply a football move. And as you just noted, you could differentiate those two and have a normal DPI be a 15 yard foul, whereas something that's absolutely blatant where you just take the guy down.
OK, maybe that's a spot foul. I think that's a really creative compromise. You can't say that hasn't been done before. We did that in the spring leagues because Blandino and I both work in the spring leagues and both work in the combined U.F.L.
now. And that's the way we look at it. And, you know, that was kind of our thinking that if the NFL would ever consider it, this might be how they consider it. And so we went through an entire season. You know how many we had the deliberate foul? Zero.
We had zero for the entire season. It doesn't happen. They try to make the play. Double move, guys beat, reach out and tackles them. That's one thing. But that usually occurs before the pass is thrown. So it falls into the category of defensive holding.
But yeah, it's interesting. What about Roger Goodell? To what degree does he get involved with officiating? A lot of people talk about personal accountability with some of these refs.
And the biggest complaint, of course, is that refs aren't held accountable. So how does R.G. get involved with this? Well, R.G. gets what he wants. I mean, he he he can push the necessary button to get through what what he wants to get through. And and I think that, listen, that's his job or whatever.
But, you know, the the I think that the and maybe Amy would say this or maybe not. I'm not so sure. But I think the league office has more say over the competition committee now than they did before. Now, the committee was run more by more traditionalist like names that you would most people would never know. Joel Bussert, those types of people that I think looked at it from a neutral position of the committee in making their recommendations to the owners as to what they think should be passed or not passed. And now I think the league offices is more more involved in pushing what they want.
And that's again, this is this is my my opinion. And I think that the one thing about the one thing about Goodell is it was an interesting thing between Goodell and Tagliabue because I was there in the transition. Tagliabue was more of a hands off, let you do your job. Roger is more of a hands on, you know, wants to know everything. I mean, when Roger took over, I was getting calls at midnight on Monday night saying, you know, what was that? And the tags, I mean, I would never hear about it until if there was a next day that he had some concern.
But but Roger does make sure that officials get held accountable and they do. And, you know, I think that's one of the great myths in in football officiating. The makeup call is a myth, is an absolute myth. You know, you miss one call. Then why would you want to miss another call on purpose to make up for the one that you missed in the first place? Because now you've got two incorrect calls and you could be on borderline of getting fired at the end of the season, which officials do get let go.
You want to be polite and say in often cases you say, well, they've retired. They you know, we've done this, moved them to this thing. But these guys are graded every week. And every play that they're a part of is looked at.
I mean, and I went through both. I mean, I had every every play, every call that I made looked at. And then I looked at every play when I was evaluating games of other officials and they're given grades. And it's stressful.
I mean, it is stressful. You wait the first two days of the week to find to get your game report. And here you think you had a pretty good game and then you're knocked down twice because you missed this defensive holding call or you missed this illegal block in the back. And these officials at the end of the year with all of this evaluations are put into tiers, which now go one through four. I believe it is tier one, which allows you to be qualified to work the Super Bowl. Tier two, the championship game. Three, you can be in the in the playoffs. Four.
Is not a good tier to be on. And if you're on that, four leaves you in tears, in other words. Four says you better if four scares you. The first year you're in four.
And then the second year you're in four, especially if it's two in a row, then it does leave you in tears. There's no other sport, in my opinion, because we're a once a week game that evaluates the officials more than the NFL does. It's always been that way from Art McNally's time all the way through Jerry Seaman and myself and Dean and all the other people that were crazy enough to take the job that we had. You know, Mike, to two points you made one about makeup calls every time I hear someone say, well, that was a makeup call. And your point is there are no makeup calls.
It reminds me of what we were told as kids. Two wrongs doesn't make something right. So if one call is wrong, don't make a makeup call that's wrong as well, because two wrongs don't make a right. And as to your point about the competition committee, I will share with you guys something I've never shared with anyone before. Well, the first part everybody pretty much knows, which is the league as a rule, or certainly a general rule, doesn't put to a vote anything it does not believe it has all the votes necessary to pass. So if there's a rule and it's up for a vote, if the league doesn't think it has the necessary number of votes to pass the rule or the rule change, it takes it off the agenda. Well, I remember walking into a league meeting after a break and there was a competition committee rule about to be voted upon. I honest to gosh don't remember the rule. I don't think it was a big deal. But as I'm walking in the door to reenter the one or two per club meeting I was attending, there's Bill Polian right at the doorway.
And it was like something out of a mob movie. Amy, how are you going to vote? How are you going to vote?
How are you going to vote? So that really does go on at league meetings. And if they don't think they can get that 24, they're not putting it up to a vote. You remember when they first changed replay, when they first, I mean over time. It was one that they thought was going to have a tough time getting through because coaches really didn't want the rule change.
They wanted sudden death like it was. So then all of a sudden meeting was essentially over and I took the coaches out to play golf. I went to play with them.
And so we're out on the golf course playing golf and word comes we're on the golf course that they changed the overtime. The owners went back in and voted and changed it without the coaches there. And then they all got mad at me. Right. Everybody thought that's why you took the coaches out. Yeah. They were mad at me because they thought I took them out to play golf just so they could leave you owners alone and pass this overtime rule.
It took me a long time for them to get over the fact that they thought it was me that created that mess. Let's take a couple of questions, if you don't mind, from our What the Football family. So Jeff M. at UW Moose, by the way, the guy's got a picture of a dog so he knows how to get to us, says, what is the most difficult penalty to call? Well, I think I said pass interference was was the toughest. So I think I'll say what's the second toughest? And I would say that's offensive holding.
And why? Why is that so tough? Because the rule book makes it tough and makes it tough for a good reason. I mean, because the rule book actually has a section in it that says when holding is not holding.
Now there's one for you. So holding is not holding if it's a double team block. So if you're giving up two guys to block one guy and then you turn and look at somewhere else, look at single blocks and don't worry about that unless they absolutely pull that rushing defender to the ground.
If there's a rip technique that is used. So if the defensive end comes down and does the rip technique and pins the arm of the offensive player around his neck, that is not to be considered offensive holding, even though it is holding because his arm is around his neck, unless they take his feet away. It's not holding. Yes, it's holding, but it's not holding if it doesn't materially affect the defender's ability to get to the ball or the runner. So this is like three of six categories where holding is not holding. And for people that say there's holding that goes on every play. Well, you're not far away from being right. I mean, you're not totally right, because my favorite play when I was ahead of officiating and had to suffer the consequences of mistakes, my favorite play where nothing could arm me, the kneel down.
I love the kneel down formation. But otherwise, yeah, there are so many holes that are not called because it's either not enough or there's other stipulations. It's the backside of the run, all that stuff. So that's what that's what I would take to tell Mooseman. All right.
I'm going to go around this one. So wolfhoundpup at hound underscore pop. And again, it's another dog, so they know that.
I love wolfhoundpup on Twitter. And we kind of touched on this. And let me just make sure that I don't ask the same question 17 times because it's not like I'm paying attention. Why can't face mask and miss face masks calls be reviewed with a red flag? Seems like there's serious nature could call for that. We kind of touched on face mask a lot here, but is there some nuance there? No, I mean, now you're going from a sister challenge to let a coach challenge that if he's talking about the red flag. I don't know. I just look at it as we know it's going to be something that they talk about in the off season. And I just think we get down the slippery slope. You know, I will tell this story.
And it's for old people like me. But in 19 after the 1998 season, when we had the call in the Seattle Jets game, when Vinnie Testaverdi scored the winning touchdown at the end of the game, which actually got every single Seattle Seahawks coach fired, Dennis Erickson and his staff. It wasn't a touchdown. The linesman confused the helmet of Vinnie with the ball. And so he ruled touchdown based on the helmet breaking the plate, which is really not the rule. But and it led to instant replay coming back the following year. George Young, who was the head of football operations, former giant GM. When we were putting this rule together, I used to walk into his office and he was anti instant replay.
I mean, he was really anti that. And he he had a manila folder. He has had one folder like this, like this for all of his, you know, instant replay material. And instead of putting instant replay on the tab right here, he wrote in big letters here on the front of the file.
He wrote The Monster Grows. This was after the 1998 season. And when a very simplistic method was put together to where it was supposed to be clear and obvious before you return, before you overturn something.
And he was right. It's grown in every sport pretty much anywhere. I mean, they have instant replay now, some with success, some with not success, some with limited success. But like I say, it's this is a league where you go that you go as far as we've gone. It's not going to go backwards. And look, we're not going to dive into this right now. It's another topic for another day if we ever do want to drive into it. And perhaps it should be with a drink in hand. But the fact that gambling has been legalized and is so prolific makes all of this even more interesting. Because notwithstanding that calls are not made or calls aren't made or calls are not not made.
That was a great sentence, Amy. With that in mind, there will be people who think there are. So that's a whole nother issue that we don't even need to dive into right now. But, you know, I think just because you brought it up, I think it's a good thing to point out that when it happened with Tim Donaghy of the NBA, when he had that thing that all surfaced, I remember Roger coming down to my office the very next day and he said, the good news is that didn't happen to us.
He said, but let's pretend it did. And so we examined everything. We examined how we put out assignments, how many times we did background checks on our current officials. And we made lots of changes based on that, which made me feel comfortable. And I think made us feel comfortable in the league that this wasn't going to happen to us. Look, they may have seen like subtle changes, like we didn't put out assignments for the entire season anymore for the officials.
So nobody knew where they were going. We did background checks like every four weeks. And I was comfortable. I'm glad that we did that. And I'm glad that I thought that Roger's take on that was really good and saying, let's pretend like it was us.
What would we do if it was? And they got to that point where you can never say never, of course. But I think it's so unlikely now in terms of officiating anyways. I remember I was covering an NBA game that night and it was a show and we were literally covering the refs more than we were covering the game. No, because it was like it was so unheard of.
And, you know, there was so much concern about that. Amy, you want to mention the foundation? No, sorry, Mike. I interrupted you. No, I said, Susie, it's like, you know, it's like talking about officials and bringing officials into the limelight or talking so much about officiating.
I have to say that prior to my time in there, when Jerry Seaman was there, Jerry Seaman, they never let him talk to the to the media period, basically, and never certainly on air. And it wasn't until me with Rich that I did the segment of you make the call with Rich. And it was so successful. Do you know that it got canceled after the first year?
And I got dumped from the NFL network and my name then in the officiating department became canceled. And and it wasn't until a one year vacation from my time with Rich that they brought us back just because it was so damn popular. I mean, I remember when you guys first started doing that because he was so excited to have the segment.
He thought it was great. We're going to take everybody behind the scenes. We're going to be able to show them what it's really like officiating and scene.
Mike, before we let you go and thank you so very much for joining us and for all of your time. I am very, very familiar with the tremendous work you do with from battlefields to ball fields. Anything you wish to share with our followers about that? Is there anything coming up with which we can assist you?
Have at it. Well, it's nice of you to ask that and timely because we have our golf tournament coming up on Monday. And, you know, I'm very proud of what we have achieved. We basically have a foundation, as you said, battlefields to ball fields, which gives scholarships to veterans to become officials in their communities to get out and be role models again, to get out and be a part of a team again.
And it's kind of a cockamamie idea that I came up with in 2016. And we've been rolling along now and I'm proud to say that we've given almost 1500 scholarships now in the total of 38 different states. And in some cases, it's had a dramatic effect on their lives.
It's got it's gotten them it's gotten them outside and doing things. And like I say, you know, being being working with kids, being a role model again. And, you know, for a time, if you went on Wikipedia and they were talking about Mike Pereira and his legacy, my legacy was that I was the person that took the officials out of white knickers and put them into long black pants.
That's certainly not much of a legacy. And and so it was kind of at that point where I felt like I needed to make a difference. I needed to try to leave officiating in a better place than it was when I first got into it beyond, you know, trying to teach somebody how to call pass interference beyond trying to explain to somebody on television what is or isn't pass interference in the in the big picture of life.
That's meaningless. And so I came up with this idea to help with the shortage of officials around the country and and and help with the veterans who needed things to do. And I'm very proud of the work that we have done. And if you just want to go online and look at battlefields to the number two battlefields to ball fields dot org, you can learn more about our foundation and seen see some of the stuff that we have done. And if you ever even think of getting involved and being a part of our team with any donation, there is the ability to do that on the site. And we would we would love to have you.
You know, we've got your website up there right now on the screen. Mike, thanks again for your time. This has been such a substantive conversation and you're really generous with your time as well. Amy, great job. And thanks again for coming on here on what the football. Thank you, Mike. My pleasure.
Anytime. So, Amy, what do you think? You're going to go trick or treating? You still do that? Come on. Oh, I love Halloween, but I stay home and give out candy. I don't go out trick or treating.
I make sure I'm there to give candy out to all the trick or treaters, but I am dressed up. OK, so what are you wearing? You know, right now it's a little bit up in the air. I'm not sure. It's going to have to depend on my mood that day.
So can you give us some little ideas? Do you like to go dark? Do you like to go? Are you Glinda the good witch? Oh, I'm going to be the Wicked Witch of the West. I think I'd be the Wicked Witch of the West.
I like that one, especially with Wicked coming out. When you buy your candy, do you buy candy you like or do you buy candy you don't like? That is you know, that is a very good philosophical question and talks about people a lot. My husband and I have this conversation every year and he says, buy candy we don't like. So if it's left over, we don't eat it.
And I say, what the? You know, like candy of choice. I have a variety this year. I have five or six different kinds of mini candy bars, but I will not say the name of those candy bars because they won't pay us until they start sponsoring us. And candy companies, when you sponsor us, not only will I say the name of your candy on air, I'll eat it on air. Taylor is going to a sleepover with seven kids. And I think the reason why she wants to sleep out is that she knows that I will take half the candy and donate it.
Because like, you know, I'm not insane. I'm not going to have my kids like jacked up on candy 24 hours a day. I think her hope is that if she goes to a sleepover, she can power through most of the candy before she gets home.
First of all, tell her I have her back. Smart, right? But instead of half the candy, I got her covered. And number two, think if you had seven sugared up kids sleeping at your house.
The mother is an angel. And my answer is hot. No, won't do it. Thank you guys all for taking in what the football we were thrilled that you were a part of us. Go out and vote.
Make every single vote count. Thanks so much. We will talk to you next week. All right, Bill, we're recording now. And please put your phone on silent.
Where is my phone? Let's go, man. Get it together over there, player. Go ahead. Pick on me the way that you want to. I would say that to my son.
Just go. Why would people want to listen to the Sims Complete podcast? Father, son, dynamic duo talking about the game of football. We do a lot of quarterback and coach talks. It's fun. I love doing this. It's been awesome. Sims Complete. Check us out on the Believe Network. Appreciate it. Just search Believe B-L-E-A-V wherever you listen.
