The NFL & NFLRA Reach An Agreement

Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports reports that the NFL and the NFLRA have officially reached an agreement that will allow refs to be available for tomorrow night’s game between the Bengals and Ravens.

Week 4 will be the first game reffed by the lockout officials this season. I’m sure there will be some rust and plenty of attention paid to the calls throughout this week’s games.

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ESPN’s Chris Mortensen is reporting that an agreement between the NFL and NFLRA “is at hand,” per Adam Schefter.

The two sides are apparently working to finalize an agreement in the near future, which would allow referees to be available for this weekend’s slate of NFL games.

It’s really just unfortunate that it took as miserable of a job, in terms of officiating, as we saw this last week.

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Peter King of SI.com reports that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and chief legal council Jeff Pash continued negotiations with the representatives of the NFL Referees Association on Tuesday and despite last night’s controversial ending, the NFL remains adamant that their demands are met.

Here’s a quote that pretty much sums up how the NFL feels about the impact of the replacement officials.

“The league believes that the short-term pain of a football nation up in arms will be worth it two to four years down the road if they can improve the overall quality of officiating by adding what would be a taxi squad of three additional crews.”

In case you’re interested, here are some extra bullet points regarding the on-going negotiations.

• Today marks the 4th consecutive day that the two sides have met.
• King’s source mentioned that the NFL insists on regaining some control over the officials that they lost in previous negotiations.
• The NFL will not guarantee that officials will work at least 15 games during the regular season.
• The NFL still wants performance to be based on week-to-week performance and make changes as they see fit.
• The NFL is trying to save $3.3 million per season by no longer guaranteeing the amount of money that officials will receive in retirement.

King adds that a deal is not imminent, even in spite of a terrible week in terms of officiating.