Judgment days

No one in the room is laughing now. George Young, senior vice president of NFL football operations, and other members of his department have entered Officiating Central. They are watching a big-screen viewing of the past week's dirtiest plays--all potentially fineable offenses. Late hits, helmet-to-helmet spearings, tauntings and the piece de resistance: Buccaneers linebacker Hardy Nickerson spitting at Panthers fullback William Floyd, with referee Ron Winter getting sprayed while serving as mediator. Nickerson later is fined $7,500 for his stupidity, the worst of the week's indiscretions.

The officiating department also puts together separate tapes of quarterback injuries, other injuries and controversial calls each week. Young gets copies, as does commissioner Paul Tagliabue. The league's competition committee depends heavily on this kind of background, plus various computer printouts that define penalty trends, to write potential new rules. Seeman produces occasional in-season officiating tapes for viewing by coaches and players. He also narrates a weekly show-and-tell tape that is absorbed by each officiating crew during four-hour weekly training sessions, which include a rules test and critique of its last contest, on the eve of the next game. Seeman's tape highlights about 40 plays--the best and worst--of the past week. The goal is to make sure bad calls aren't repeated and that good ones are constantly duplicated. All this after mini-clinics in the spring for officials on the bubble and a full-blown mandatory summer clinic in Dallas. All officials have to pass an extensive yearly physical and have a maximum body weight they must not exceed. Unlike baseball, no fat men are allowed in NFL stripes. The league also pays the costs for each official to have satellite TV, so he can tape his work and review it after returning home from his game.

"So why can't they be more consistent? And how can they miss penalties out in the middle of the field, where everyone can see them?" laments one team official, who begs anonymity lest he be fined under the NFL's no-public-criticism-of-officials rule. "I think all of us would say the officiating is better, but it can still leave a lot to be desired."

Young, the former general manager of the Giants, agrees things could be better. So does Seeman. That's the reason for all of this analysis and training and scouting.

"Every year, when we talk to the coaches, it's the same complaints--pass interference, illegal contact, holding and consistency," Young says. "But I guarantee you, this is the best it's ever been in this league. We're talking more than ever to coaches and players about officiating philosophy, and it has to reap benefits."

It is Day Two and Mike Pereira, one of four full-time NFL officiating supervisors, is tired. He had a restless night, worrying about calls from the Colts-49ers game, one of two contests he will analyze this week. There are four disputed calls in the 49ers-Colts game; he has concluded two were correct, two were not. But he woke up in the middle of the night, wondering if he had missed something. He knew he probably hadn't. After all, consider how he reviews every play: He checks first to see if any of the eligible receivers have been involved in a penalty; then he checks the blocks of the five interior linemen; then he lets the play run through, to see if any other infractions can be detected. And he does all this by switching between views, and then constantly rewinding the tape and letting it roll again. Then, maybe, he can move on to the next play. But only after any mistakes are recorded on a sheet that lists every snap--and what happened--during the game.