The former NFL official sat down with Nestor and Luke Jones to discuss officiating ahead of Super Bowl LIV in Miami.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pass interference, game, official, officiating, rule, yards, field, umpires, called, officiate, league, play, flag, judge, replay, wns, decisions, ball, sky, new orleans
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio, Mike Perreira
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome back, WNS, G Towson, Baltimore and wn St. dotnet are ongoing. Super Bowl 54 coverage continues here on radio row. Mike Pereira is here and I got to do something before we do anything because my wife loves you. So we got to take a little selfie to let her know that we’re there. There she is. Alright, there we go. So I’ll send that to her. How you been?
Mike Perreira 00:23
I’ve been great. Good,
Nestor Aparicio 00:24
man. I mean, we’re gonna talk rules. And Luke’s gonna pitch about officiating which is all people who’s pitching
Mike Perreira 00:30
about officiating everybody. Smooth this year I’ve ever seen in officiating all my life. I’ve been officiating for now. 49 years some way shape or form. We fixed it. They finally fix this has been the smoothest year I have ever seen. Okay.
Nestor Aparicio 00:46
Yeah, we fixed it. I mean, they’re never gonna get fixed, though, right? I mean, for me, it’s really difficult to do. And I think every every fan should understand that they’re
Mike Perreira 00:55
never going to be perfect. That’s the thing. And you know, you realize this, and I do think I’ve never seen a game that’s perfectly officiated. There’s mistakes every game, I think probably being realistic, there’s going to be six or seven mistakes, sure, in every game, but when you think about this, look at there’s 150 plays actually about 155. But if you think 150 within each play easily, there’s 10 different decisions that the officials have to make, whether whether it’s the five interior linemen, they’re blocking, you know, and you got two officials watching Five Guys, whether it’s press defense zone defense, illegal contact, defensive holding, is the formation legal is the motion League 10 different decisions on every play. So if you take 150 plays, that’s like 1500 decisions that they have to make in real time. And they miss about six or seven. That’s pretty damn short, shorter. They’re pretty good. They really are good. But sometimes external forces make it harder, like this pass interference.
Nestor Aparicio 02:00
Well, what do you make of that? I mean, this time last year, and I don’t know if you came, I think you came by last year. But yeah, look up and I see the wrong team one, you know that the saints rams game, I will stand by the people of New Orleans on that one. And I know other things happened after that. But in the aftermath of that there was all the hullabaloo with the owners meetings were you and I met many, many years ago, and we’re all gonna get together, we’re going to change the rules, and then we’re not going to enforce the rules kind of reminds you the Republican Senate.
Mike Perreira 02:27
Yeah. No kidding. The thing is, they went about it wrong. I mean, this is not a good rule. This was a this is a reactionary rule where they didn’t think through the unintended consequences. And this was never gonna make sense when you think that, okay, let’s talk about this pass interference rule. And we’re not changing the pass interference rule. We’re just making it reviewable. But what we’re doing is we’re saying that the standard that we want the officials to use on the field is different than the standard that we want replay to you. So while we agree that it’s pass interference that should have been called on the field, it might not be big enough to rise to the level of what happened in New Orleans, a year ago. And so therefore, you have to say to a coach, yeah, no, it was pass interference, we should have called it, but it just wasn’t big enough to call and replay that’s nonsensical. That doesn’t make sense to you, me, fans, players, coaches. It was a bad rule. It just was a bad rule. And so I think I don’t think officiating honestly, was any worse this year, or necessarily any better. But because of all of this confusion about pass interference, it made it seem worse. We’re back to what’s a catch, pass. Now we’re in our what’s passing it fear, which
Nestor Aparicio 03:53
is always 3040 50 yards, right? Like eight.
Mike Perreira 03:57
But certainly argue about the
Nestor Aparicio 03:59
ones we’re going to fight about right? are going to be real game changers and look, and by
Mike Perreira 04:05
the way, the ones that we’re really going to think your game changes happen at the end of the game. They don’t happen in the first quarter. You missed them in the first quarter, but they don’t have the consequences that what happened in New Orleans, and which why I feel like that, if they were going to make this reviewable, they should have made it just reviewable in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter, because that’s when it has the greatest effect.
Nestor Aparicio 04:27
My prayer here Fox Sports, they’re either doing the game on Sunday, if there’s a little football game, it starts like now you can watch the pregame and do all that stuff. I mean, I’m sure you’ve been asked this, but I’ve never asked you this. All right. So tomorrow morning to Dell calls and makes you God like literally you control the game as it’s played. What What would you change if you if you were unilaterally if you were the Donald Trump of, you know, running rules of how do you run it?
Mike Perreira 04:55
Well, I mean, I guess how do I What rules do it Change? Well, I think really what we’ve done is we let technology get too far into the game. I would take some of the technology out of the game hard to do. What does that mean? What’s your? Well, because I don’t I don’t think I don’t think the game is being officiated on the field anymore. And and I think that’s hurt, officiating. It’s decisions are being made, you know, they took it off the field moved into the press box with instant replay. Now it’s in New York and New York’s making the decision. You know, you’re not you’re not almost not held accountable to officiate on the field. I was saying to somebody here earlier today, I mean, when I officiated and I was a downfield official, if I threw a flag for pass interference, I’d have to throw it 20 yards sometime. And I wouldn’t give it to the spot. But I knew after the play was over that I had to get my flag and move it five yards in advance, I had to do that. And I also knew that I had to get the right spots on the sideline. Now honestly, I saw the flag and the pass interference occurs on the 42 their flag it only gets to the 37 You got big brother going move your flag to the 42. year they’ve moved the fight a guy goes out of bounds on like, it
Nestor Aparicio 06:18
sounds like by the way,
Mike Perreira 06:20
he’s a little bit me. kickoff return. I mean, the guy misses the out of bounds spot by two yards, let’s say not a big deal period. But he misses it. Move the ball up to four yards. I mean, it’s like okay. You don’t almost have to officiate anymore and and I
Nestor Aparicio 06:44
don’t get him frustrated in this great.
Mike Perreira 06:46
I do think rare on plot. Right. I do think that it’s that it’s hurt officiating. And I think the when I look at the roster from top to bottom, and I compare it like back to my days, I think that the officiating the officials themselves are better now. But I think the officiating is worse. So then why, and then I look at technology and then I look at ridiculous rules like pass interference coming in. And I say that’s why and, and, and i That’s why I would begin to pull back a bit with all this technology and force those guys on the field, who are clearly capable of doing it themselves without the big boy getting in your ear. This is New York. Listen, move that ball up six inches.
Nestor Aparicio 07:42
You baseball fan, love and
Mike Perreira 07:44
play baseball. I never played football. I was a baseball player played baseball, through through college actually.
Nestor Aparicio 07:51
Okay, so baseball and Luke is a big baseball nerd. We’ve seen what we’re gonna do with umpires, right? We’re just going to have
Mike Perreira 07:59
well, you’re not going to do away with umpires but but but
Nestor Aparicio 08:02
I mean, we were. We’ve seen that game change better worse you decide right? But with football, the longer the games these long timeouts I sit in the stands, I go to the bathroom come back. When I’m in the press box, third, fourth quarter them the minute there’s a challenge or anything I know I got plenty time to go to the bathroom. Go get a drink. Take my time it. There’s too much of that for me in football. And baseball lent itself to that. And now we have challenges in everything that’s going on. Not to mention cheating and technology, which is another thing we can get to. But we are getting the big brother right we are getting to here’s the digital way. We’re gonna we’re gonna officiate, right.
Mike Perreira 08:42
I mean, I think of umpiring what I’ve read about this robot, robotic Maltese. So you’re gonna have to but you still have to have the umpire so he’s gonna be he’s gonna be behind the plate. And you know, it comes to the pitch and he’s gonna get the buzz on his right chest, which means it’s a strike, and then he’s still gotta go strike or, or he’s gonna get the buzz on the left chest, which is ball. Or, well, what are we doing here? I mean, what are we doing? This is a human game. And the game has changed so much to even to the point where what we can do now legally, we couldn’t do before. So you’re more invested, literally in the game when it comes to gambling. And so everything’s got to be transparent. Everything has to be perfect. And I say, and I’m probably saying too much here, but that’s fine. Because I’m almost done today. Even with me when I was there, we always tries to we always tried to when it comes to officiating, we always tried to fix things with band aids. And there comes a point where you can’t fix them with band aids. You can’t fix all cuts with band aids. And so if you look at it and say that And how can we really break down and go outside the box and do something better? I think the sky just I was gonna ask you about that that has been talked about. I think that’s something that could change officiating, but still leave it in the officials hands. And if you had this guy judge in the in New Orleans a year ago, this guy judge who is in uniform, he’s in a booth. He’s got a monitor, he can play back the live feed real quickly, he can see the first replay. He’s an official, he just like an official on the field, and he can just get on and say to the referee, hey, Vinnie, that was passing interference on Roby Coleman at the seven yard line, drop the flag, put the ball there, let’s go first and goal corrected in real time in between plays, no, three minute replay stoppage. And let’s focus my god on maybe what’s a priority for the league like player safety. So let let this guy, the eighth official, the sky judge get involved in player safety. And if there’s a hit an illegal hit with the helmet, and he sees it. He’s just like one of the crew, he just calls down and said, Hey, I saw that I got it’s illegal use of the helmet on 28 defense dropped the flag 15 yards, be consistent. It would be quick, would look funny. I agree. It would look funny. You’ll get over that. Yeah, you’ll get over that. But you’ll be more accurate in real time. And that eighth official who may be is a rotation official, he may come you know, he may be there as part of that crew every fourth game, you rotate it through the there’s so many things that you can do, I think with that sky judge concept, to me that that would work, but it’s outside the norm. I mean, it’s much bigger than a band aid. It’s but it’s something that adds a chance and it just seems so logical to me that why wouldn’t the league say? Okay, let’s do this. Let’s use this guy, job force side sky judge for 64 preseason games. And let’s let’s capture all the data from the 64 preseason game. See if we get more see if we’re our accuracy and improves. See if we have less stops less stops you know, hey, I got the shot. No Is this like at a different angle on the field, that’s a catch the ball never hit the ground. Real time make the decision gold boom, boom, boom.
Nestor Aparicio 12:38
My prayer the passion here. This is your chance. Luke you
Luke Jones 12:42
I was gonna ask him about the sky judge. I mean, I, I love the idea of being more accurate in real time. And not this four minute stoppage where everyone who’s watching the game at home or on 55 inch high definition, TVs are seeing six different angles in slow motion. And that’s just feeding the beast of these guys are incompetent. They don’t know what they’re looking at. Even though we all know the human eye is only capable of processing so much going on at one time. I think it would really it would improve accuracy. And I really think it would improve perception as well.
Mike Perreira 13:14
You know, I remember one time now I really get in trouble if I bared my soul. But I remember one time when I worked at the league, I went to an executive I’m not gonna say which one it was with an idea that I thought was really a good idea. logical idea, kind of kinda like what I think about the sky judge right now. And I went to the this executive and I said this and he said, good idea. Forget about it. I said, What do you mean good idea. Forget about it. Forget about it. This makes no sense to me. And he goes, this is the NFL. He said, You know what the NFL NFL stands for? And no, I’m thinking okay, what are the things that okay, I said? No family life. When it comes to official? No. No Fun League? No, not for long. Not for long. No. And I said, Well, what’s the stand for is it stands for no effing logic. That’s dropped. Okay, I give I give and but it’s why you work for Fox Sports. That’s right. That’s right. And I probably may not even have a job with Fox Sports after telling that story. But but it’s just there’s there’s things that can be done, but you really have to open up your, your mind and you have to think outside the box. And I say this stuff. In hindsight, when I was just as damn guilty myself. When I had the job. We changed rules based on one thing that happened and it hadn’t happened in 30 years. is and we changed the rule and Mike homerun used to beat on me. Why are we changing this rule when it hasn’t ever happened before? And now it happens. And it’s so rare, but we’re going to change the rule. We’re going to add another layer to the rulebook that Mike was right. Mike was right, but I drank the Kool Aid.
Nestor Aparicio 15:21
What do you still love about football while we’re here at Super Bowl, because we bitched about officiating and it became not being perfect. Lamar Jackson felt perfect in Baltimore. mahomes You know, the whole Steve sable symphony and, and Phil, you know, all of that. It, there’s still, it’s still a great game. It’s gonna bring us all together on Sunday. You
Mike Perreira 15:37
know, listen, I mean, there’s so much I love about the game. I love the people that are associated with the game but what I really love is going from four and 12 to 13 and three to see turnarounds like we see with San Francisco. Let’s ignore the fact that I grew up a 40 Niner fan, but just the fact that there is that ability for the team to turn things around quickly like Lynch and Shanahan they’ve done you know with the 14 I did and Garoppolo I love I’m old I love fullbacks give me use check all the time. I love seeing the fullback what do we hardly see used anymore to him open up these holes. And it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a marvelous game. That is still a game. It’s a bit of a show, but it’s still a game. I’m not the I was the honorary and I accepted the coronation of being the President of the No Fun League when I worked for the league. I don’t like it all the celebrations and all the stuff that you know that players do nowadays, you sack a guy and you’re down 26 to six and you got to get up and do a sack dance I’m it’s not me. That’s not my mind. But then I’m old. I’m a different generation, but I love the people and and I’m telling you I just I like the underdogs and the underdogs are my buddies. They’re the officials and and they’re gonna get criticized. I just hope that they they hope that this game on Sunday ends up without a pass interference controversy. Much like the end of the Sanford’s the 40 Niners Seahawk game and week 17 were really Fred Warner, committed pass interference wasn’t called Seattle wins the game if the B scores after that if it’s called. And then Seattle ends up the three seats. San Francisco wins if the five seat saints get a bye. And now on the Kyle Rudolph push, if it ends up with the pass interference. This is the worst thing to me that could happen in the league at the end of the game, pass interference play not called it is but not added. So the team loses the game and then the rule goes away two months later. I think that would be a disaster. So two months from now we’re talking about had this rule which they dropped not been in place. San Francisco wouldn’t have won the game. I think that’s the that’s the disaster. That’s the Titanic. To me that is sitting out there on Sunday. Good to see
Nestor Aparicio 18:19
you. Always great to visit with you. Thanks for the love for my wife, Mike Pereira fox sports. You can watch him officiating. Hopefully there’s less of you and more.
Mike Perreira 18:28
The only analysts job well, maybe not the only one. But success is and what every but every official would want not to hear from me. So if I don’t get on air, I can’t think of anybody that will be unhappy.
Nestor Aparicio 18:45
There he goes my prayer. You don’t want to see him but you’ll always see him. We are WNS. See now that am 1570 wn st Towson Baltimore. Live from radio row in Miami Beach with more ahead after this
