When it comes to fixing an NFL game, what are the odds that the fix falls on a player? Probably less than the odds the fix falls on the referees.
Not to worry—there is no evidence or a hint of scandal in the ref camp, according to Dean Blandino, who oversaw the officiating from 2013 to 2017.
This doesn’t stop people from wondering whether a ref has cheated whenever there is a bad call, according to CBS Sports. The NFL has never dealt with a situation in which the refs committed an offense during a game. But there were situations where officials were asked to fix games.
During a recent interview on the Awful Announcing podcast, Blandino was specifically asked if he was aware of any situations where an official might have been contacted about impacting “a score or a stat line.”
“We’ve had situations where people were approached,” Blandino said. “We’ve always told our game officials because they’re in hotels—they’re traveling around during the season—we didn’t want them wearing NFL-branded gear. We wanted them to be inconspicuous, because someone sees them and ‘Oh, those are the NFL officials,’ and then you never know.”
If the unthinkable happens and a ref is asked to favor one team over another, the official needs to contact the office of security.
Blandino also credits the dozens of precautions the league has on the books to prevent such shenanigans. It begins with the league approach to hiring officials.
“The NFL has so many controls in place, just to become an official,” Blandino said. “They look at all of your business associations. They look for conflicts of interest, all of that, bank accounts, everything.”
“You’re monitoring the betting lines and looking at how calls impact those lines and are their individual officials that are involved in more of those calls. It’s a massive, massive undertaking,” Blandino said on the podcast.
The NBA had a nightmare situation in 2007 when it came out that referee Tim Donaghy had been betting on games and manipulating the point spread of games that he was directly involved in.
Based on the safeguards that the NFL has in place, it sounds like Blandino doesn’t think the NFL will ever be dealing with a similar situation.
