Hello all. I am new to this site, so forgive me if this has been discussed previously. Does anybody ever have any insight of the referee crews that work a particular week before the games begin on Sunday. I would love to know if anybody knows. Thanks.

REPLY: I don't believe that the NFL publishes their officiating crews' schedules. I may be wrong, but it seems a no-brainer for them to keep that information fairly close to the vest.

Ya, I know a couple of NFL Ref's and they keep that stuff real close to the vest.

What have you to say about that?

I know one in my area and a line he used once is that if he isn't working Sunday then he's working Monday. However that isn't always the case as one or more crews are off each week. There are 17 crews, 17 weeks, and a maximum of 16 games a week. Each crew gets to work a Sunday night and Monday night game. So by the end of the season you know which crews are working those last games but there are still substitutes every once in a while. Other than that they don't want anybody to know who will be where. When you are trying to become an NFL official the league sends the FBI in to do a background check on you. They don't want any doubt about an official working to fix the point spread of these games. Someone can make a lot of money that way.

And I hear that this was no joke either. I heard that this was more extensive than the background check one gets when becoming CIA or Secret Service. If you stole a 5 cent piece of gum at 5 years old and never got caught, they will find out about it.

JasonTx,

I believe you are taking the background check a bit too far. I know know that the FBI intelligence guys do a check for a enourmous fee for the NFL. But to say this check is more in-depth than the Secret Service background check is laughable. I know this personally. Plus, common sense would tell you that a guy protecting the president would get a more detailed background check than an NFL official.

Common sense is not common in government. However, in this case you are probably right. High level security agents are subject to polygraph exams and I doubt that the NFL is subjecting its officials to polygraphs.

Bob,

You would be surprised. You cant only judge on what you hear in the news.

The NFL official in my area works at a company that NOBODY can go into who doesn't work there (let's just say that some areas are covered under the words "National Security" and "Black Hole". There are no exceptions. The FBI had free access to everywhere they needed to go.

NFL Security is, just from what public accounts I've ever read, very, very thorough. I doubt it approaches Secret Service colonoscopy-type checks, but it's probably very thorough.

If you've ever read any of Peter Gent's books, in at least one of them he goes into Investico (I think was the name), a pseudonym for NFL Security and details all the stuff they do. Gent veils a lot of inside stuff inside his books (and, like all authors, he probably embellishes some of it). I think The Franchise is the most detailed of his works, even moreso than North Dallas Forty and its sequel.

Direct from an NFL supervisor, all prospective NFL officials undergo an IQ exam.

I heard that this year, the crews got their entire schedule right off the bat rather than every two or three weeks at a time they used to get.

IQ test? There goes my dream.......

So would lots of other bookies and gamblers.

It's not available.

Well, maybe not exactly as in depth as the Secret Service but according to Larry Upson it is more in depth than what we could imagine. And he did say it was more in depth than some government agencies.

In his book <i>Inside the Meat Grinder</i>, Chad Brown talks about how the NFL sent someone arond to talk to the neighbors about him but they ended up stopping at HIS house. He wasn't home but they asked his wife some questions before realizing their mistake.