Roger Goodell’s Stunning Defense of NFL Officials Leaves Fans In Disbelief – “Does He Watch the Games?”

Roger Goodell's NFL officials have been facing a lot of flak for their questionable calls over the past few years.

Roger Goodell’s Stunning Defense of NFL Officials Leaves Fans In Disbelief – “Does He Watch the Games?”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (Image via Dov Kleiman/X)

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has done a phenomenal job pushing the league into a stratosphere where it is now primed to garner a global fan following.

It is a major departure from the rest of the world, which scoffed at the thought of American football and stuck to soccer as its major sport. Now, acceptance is growing, thanks to Goodell’s executives tweaking the game to make it exciting.

Along with that comes a conscious effort to promote recognizable and marketable teams as well as superstar athletes. The best example of the latter is Shedeur Sanders‘ addition to the Pro Bowl, despite there being other deserving candidates.

Just like the Sanders Pro Bowl decision received a lot of flak, so did the league’s controversial efforts to manipulate games to help those marketable teams’ advance in the postseason, so that fan interest stays.

However, those officiating ‘mistakes’ have led to some extreme backlash. Keeping that in mind, reporters asked Roger Goodell if he and the league were working on fixing those errors.

I’m so amazed at how good our officials are. We spend time all week looking at various angles, and still debating it a week later. These guys have to make a split-second decision. The men and women on our field are incredible.

Roger Goodell replied

His answer was specific to the overtime interception in the Buffalo Bills vs. Denver Broncos Divisional round playoff game. It seems the commissioner was giving his team of officials the benefit of the doubt.

Fans tear into Roger Goodell for defending officials

Once the clip of this answer reached the internet, football fans were in disbelief. They felt that Roger Goodell was being dismissive of the terrible officiating that has plagued the league, despite the presence of proof.

Fans believe that this was a delusional opinion, considering the NFL could face more backlash if such officiating ‘errors’ continue. Check out examples of those reactions below:

Roger Goodell might be trying to save his officiating team from receiving more ‘hate’ than they currently do. But to blatantly dismiss it by saying that he is ‘amazed’ with the team was maybe a bit too much for fans.

Roger Goodell wants to use AI to help officials

With the heat increasing on these officiating mistakes, Roger Goodell took it one step further by suggesting how difficult it is for referees to get it right, and what he wants to do to help down the line.

Roger Goodell wants to use AI to help officials
Roger Goodell wants to use AI to help officials (Image via Richard Johnson/X)

It’s a difficult sport to officiate. It’s fast, it’s quick, and we have to be able to use technology in my view to try to prevent the obvious errors.

Roger Goodell said

NFL insider Ian Rapoport confirmed that the commissioner was contemplating using AI in the future to help his officials. Along with the multitude of officiating tools available at their disposal, the use of more technology could help reduce errors.

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