As collective bargaining negotiations between the NFL Referees Association and the NFL stretch on, the league has reportedly been “laying groundwork” to bring replacement refs back for the start of the 2026 season, per ESPN’s Kevin Seifert.
The current labor deal between the NFL and NFLRA expires in May, and Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio first reported that the league would recruit officials from “small college” conferences, “onboard” the potential replacements in April, conduct introductory, in-person meetings in May, provide training via Zoom over the summer, send the replacement refs to training camps in August, and begin working regular-season games in September.
The league used replacement refs in 2012, with the failed experiment resulting in the “Fail Mary,” where a Monday night game between the Packers and Seahawks ended in Seattle winning after a controversial simultaneous possession call in the end zone. The “Fail Mary” was just one mistake in a long list of officiating blunders made by the replacement refs.
“Frankly, I’m surprised they would even consider it after 2012,” NFLRA executive director Scott Green told ESPN, and it appears that he’s not alone in his thinking that the league shouldn’t even entertain going down this route.
Pat McAfee posted a video on social media on Wednesday and didn’t mince words over the notion of replacement refs making a return.
“We need [referees] to care about the game. We need you to have a little bit of feel,” McAfee said. “We need you to be committed to what ball is. And there’s a lot of you out there that are, and we appreciate that. But if you’re just going to hold that line with the union because you want to hold the NFL hostage, and you’re going to let ball have what we had with high school f*cking refs calling games, those were terrible days in the NFL.”
“I mean, that was tough. Just like the smallest things, though,” he added. “Punter, you punt the ball out of bounds, the refs are telling where the ball goes out of bounds at. I got some f*cking junior high ref, okay, because no college refs would do it.”
“That cannot happen. But we also can’t just hand over complete control and lack of accountability to these refs. We need to work together for the good of ball. For the good of f*cking ball,” McAfee closes the argument with.
NOPE
WE CAN’T BE DOING REPLACEMENT HIGH SCHOOL REFS IN THE NFL AGAIN@NFL, time to start the retired player pipeline.. FOR THE GOOD OF BALL https://t.co/4eI07viBqV pic.twitter.com/JcNzgZpYAS
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) March 18, 2026
As talks between the sides continue, it’s obvious that both sides know that replacement refs would be the NFL’s absolute last resort after 2012’s debacle, but if a deal can’t be reached in time, their return just might be the reality, to the dismay of every person involved.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.