The NFL gets it right with first all-Black on field and replay crew

The NFL gets a lot of things wrong. You could write a book on what they do wrong. Or two books. Or 20. Much of what we see wrong with the league is officiating.

We all know it’s been terrible this season. The last two seasons. The last 20. But something happened on Thursday night that was stunning and forward-thinking and historic. It was about officiating. And it wasn’t bad news for once. It was the opposite. In fact, the NFL should take a bow.

The NFL announced that the game between the Chargers and the Raiders had the first ever all-Black, on-field and replay crew. It was also the first time that three women (one on the field and two in the replay booth) were on the same crew.

Now, I’m sure that certain societal elements will take this news all in stride. The combination of an all-Black crew and three women — three Black women, at that — will not cause certain heads to explode on Fox. The word ‘woke’ will not be utilized as a verb. Everyone will be nice and calm about it. Cool beans.

But this really is a tremendous deal and something that the NFL should be applauded for. The league, of course, has had historic and persistent issues with hiring Black head coaches. It’s been a disaster, in fact. It’s been better (at least recently) when it comes to diversifying its game crews.

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While the league office can’t control who owners hire as head coaches, the NFL can diversify other aspects of the game on its own. Officiating is one of those things.

The steps the NFL has taken to make its officiating crews more diverse have at times been incremental but recently they’ve been consistent. In 2020, the NFL announced that a November game between the Rams and Buccaneers would feature the first all-Black, on-field officiating crew. That group was led by longtime referee Jerome Boger.

“This historic Week 11 crew is a testament to the countless and immeasurable contributions of Black officials to the game, their exemplary performance, and to the power of inclusion that is the hallmark of this great game,’ Troy Vincent, the NFL’s Executive Vice President of Football Operations, said at the time.

In 2006, Boger became just the third Black referee in league history, the NFL said. That in itself is remarkable that there’d only been three Black referees in the history of the NFL up to that point. The first Black referee in league history was Johnny Grier in 1988. About 20 years before, in 1965, the NFL says that Burl Toler, when he was hired as a head linesman, was the first Black game official in any major professional sports league.

What might even be more impressive than the league diversifying in terms of race with this crew is its diversifying with gender. The NFL has been remarkably slow when it comes to women game officials. The league said the three women officials were line judge Maia Chaka, Artenzia Young-Seigler was the replay official, and Desiree Abrams the replay assistant.

The game itself was unremarkable with the Chargers getting their doors blown off. If you want to see what an NFL team that quit looks like, watch a replay of that game. If you want to see a team fighting hard for its coach in Antonio Pierce, watch the same contest.

The game was absurd but the night was still big. The most significant steps a league can take when it tries to make its league look more like America or, at the very least, like its player base, is take consistent steps. Keep moving forward. Not sideways and certainly not backward. But forward.

Yes, it’s obviously true, that the NFL gets a lot of things wrong. You could write a book on what they do wrong. Or two. Or 20. Hell, you could write 100.

But boy did the league nail this. It got something with officiating right.

Finally.