Roger Goodell said yesterday he was pleased with the officiating in Wednesday night’s Giants-Cowboys season opener, the first time the league has used replacement referees in a regular-season game since the first week of the 2001 season.
“I think our officials did a more than adequate job [Wednesday] night and I think that we’ve proven that we can train them and get them up to NFL standards,” the NFL commissioner said at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit at the Bryant Park Grill in Manhattan.
But Goodell said he didn’t think the performance from the replacement officials meant more leverage for the league in their stalemate with the NFL Referees Association.
“I think we were dealing from a position of strength from the get-go,” Goodell said. “We did this 11 years ago. The game does not stop.”
The league is paying head referee replacements $3,500 per game and $3,000 per game to the other officials on the field. The lowest-paid rookie official made $4,500 per game last season.
Goodell said that the current divide between the league and the referees is about $50 million to $70 million on a five- to seven-year deal. The offer the league has on the table would bump the average official’s salary from $150,000 to $200,000.