Exploring NFL Officiating and Fan Perceptions with Dean Blandino

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00:00Hello everyone it's Adam Kaplan here for Sports Grid with my man Dean Blanduno.

00:05Dean Blanduno was a longtime NFL employee overseeing officiating and

00:10Dean you're a man here because you're the perfect guy to talk about this. Let's

00:14get started. So I don't know how to address this. Eagle fans are always

00:19conspiracy theorists. Okay the Chiefs they get favoritism which I know for a

00:24fact it's not true. We know about Mahomes and they supposed it flop, tried to flop.

00:29The Will Anderson call. So let's move this along here. What's the real story

00:34with the fans and their angst with the officiating with the Chiefs? Well I don't

00:39think it's just Eagles fans. I think you hear a lot of this around the country. I

00:43just think the Chiefs are really good and they're on this

00:47historic run. The first three-peat potential and when a team is that good

00:51you're gonna look for reasons to kind of tear them down. It happened with the

00:54Patriots. Have they gotten the benefit of close calls? Sure. But every team that is

00:58good there's a lot of factors that goes in. You're good. You got to have a little

01:02bit of luck. You're gonna get the benefit of some calls from time to time. And

01:05again it's it's not a conspiracy and but I think that is the narrative right now.

01:09All right let's get to that Will Anderson call against when it was the

01:12Texans and the Chiefs. I know the letter of the law is one thing like it the

01:16refs have to call it in real time by what they see. What were your

01:20thoughts on that call? I think from where the official was standing I was not

01:24shocked that the flag was thrown. I think you've seen that all year when

01:28the player comes in high you're gonna get that call more often than not. I

01:32think you know then you look at the replay and maybe did he actually hit him

01:35in the head it was questionable but when you come in high like that especially

01:39with the protections that the quarterback gets in the pocket you're

01:42gonna see that flag so I didn't have a problem with that with that hit in terms

01:47of getting up getting the flag. So Dean fans are always complaining about

01:50officials but me as a journalist I'd look at down the middle I think we're

01:54actually really really good but nobody's perfect. Overall where's the state of

01:57officiating from your sort of overview? Well I think it is kind of at a point

02:02now where it's like we're using a lot of technology to help officials. Where do we

02:06draw the line? I think you have to have the right balance because we can't

02:09re-officiate every play upstairs. That's not gonna it's just not gonna be

02:13good for the flow of the game. I do think the biggest issue the league has right

02:17now with officiating is transparency. I really do. I feel like if the league

02:21could give people a better perspective be more open about processes and how

02:26things work and explaining calls I think that's it that would be a good

02:30thing. We may we might not always agree but it rather than if there's something

02:33controversial and not say anything or double down and say oh no it was correct

02:37if you make a mistake admit it let's explain why and I think that would help

02:41go a long way to dispel some of these conspiracy. So one of my favorite things

02:45they've added is replay assist. To me it looks like it's really good. Your

02:48thoughts on it so far? No I think it's been great. I think it's when it's

02:51seamless and you can help the officials and you have objective information it's

02:56really really good. Keep the game moving. Hey look if the official rules are to

02:59catch and the ball's on the ground tell them it's incomplete let's keep the game

03:02moving. I think that's a good a good add and we'll see we'll see they're gonna

03:06look talk about adding some more things to replay assist going forward. So Dean

03:10this game here that the the group of officials are gonna work at what are

03:13your thoughts on those guys? I think it's a good a good group. You've got Ron

03:16Torbert who's a veteran referee. The crew chief you always start there. You've got

03:20it's a good mix of you've got a couple of officials that are working their

03:23first Super Bowl and then some other officials that are working they're

03:26either second or more. So I think it's a good group. They've they've been working

03:30together in terms of the last couple of weeks preparing, watching film and I

03:35think they're gonna have a great game on Sunday. Oh well Dean Blandino just told

03:38you. You have it. Yeah we trust it. We trust him. We trust his ability to

03:43and now give you great analysis on the state of officiating and believe me he's

03:47I've known Dean for a while he is no biases. You just won't see a clean game.

03:52For Dean Blandino, I'm Adam Kaplan.

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