NFL notebook: League hires its first Black female official; overtime will get better

The NFL this week announced the hiring its first ever Black female official.

Maia Chaka, who most recently worked as an official in the Pac-12 and XFL, will become the second woman working in the league as a referee, joining Sarah Thomas, who was the first woman to officiate the Super Bowl last month in Tampa Bay.

“It didn’t really hit me until just now when I saw the introduction,” Chaka said in a television appearance on the “TODAY” Show, according to Yahoo! Sports. “I’m like, this is really real. This is something that we’re always taught to work hard for and sometimes we just don’t take time to stop and smell our own roses. And I’ve just been grinding for so long in this. It’s just an honor to be able to join the National Football League.”

Chaka, who works as a physical education teacher in Virginia Beach, Va., and Thomas broke into the NFL in 2014 as part of a development program for officials. That same year they both became the first female officials to work a college football FBS bowl game.

Chaka said she wants her story to be an inspiration to those wanting to follow her path to the highest level of professional football.

“I just want them to know that if you have a passion for something and if you have a drive for something, don’t let it hold you back just because you think something may give you some kind of limitation,” she said. “Continue to work hard and always, always, always just follow your dreams.”

Rule changes coming?

The Baltimore Ravens and head coach John Harbaugh, a member of the league’s competition committee, have proposed two notable rule changes that could get voted on by owners during their virtual meetings later this month.

One is a new “spot and choose” format for overtime, which would alleviate the luck component of the coin toss, which the analytics community appears in favor of.

How would it work? One team would choose what yard line the ball is placed while the other would choose which team is on offense. Then overtime would be decided by either sudden death or who has the higher score after the allotted time, similar to how fourth quarters are completed (there would be a coin toss for teams to decide whether they choose where the ball goes or picking offense/defense).

There doesn’t appear to be much downside to this proposal, other than the traditional kickoff to start overtime being removed from the equation. It’s likely most teams would opt for the offense to have the ball deep in their own territory, similar to a kickoff scenario, anyway. The main appeal is eliminating the luck factor that comes with winning the overtime coin toss and winning the game with a touchdown on the first drive without the other team having a chance to possess the ball.

Another proposal from the Ravens: add an umpire to the booth to oversee officiating with the benefit of all television angles in real time. The goal is to avoid officials making glaring mistakes that are apparent to the TV viewer but maybe not the referees on the field.

From Pro Football Talk:

PFT has obtained a copy of Baltimore’s submission to the Competition Committee, and Baltimore’s arguments remain very persuasive. The booth umpire would be expected to provide pertinent information to correct clear and obvious officiating errors of every type, with the directive of doing so without disrupting the normal timing of game administration.

The timing of that proposal is interesting from another standpoint. The league is considering making roughing the passer reviewable, according to a report from NFL Network’s Judy Battista. That’s good news for those who think too many quarterbacks benefit from soft roughing the passing calls. But it might be bad news to others who disliked the replay reviews of pass interference that only lasted one season in 2019. The challenge would be clearly defining roughing the passer in way that’s easily enforceable and less subjective. But those decisions could be made more quickly with another official in the booth watching the TV angels.

There’s also talk of an alternative to the on-side kick getting proposed again. Recent rule changes have prevented the kicking teams from overloading one side of the field, thus decreasing the likelihood of the kicking team coming down with the onside kick. The new proposal would call for teams to have a chance at converting a fourth-and-15 from inside their own territory rather than try the on-side kick.

One more notable proposal comes from the Buffalo Bills. The team wants to prevent teams from interviewing or hiring new coaches until after the conference championship round or the Super Bowl. That way coaches on playoff teams can focus on their upcoming opponents rather than some of the most important job interviews of their careers.

It would also allow coaches that go deep into the playoffs to have a better chance at landing jobs. Some teams are eager to make their hires early in the process to get a head start on building coaching staffs and plan for the coming offseason. That’s made it more difficult for coaches participating in the Super Bowl to be on the same playing field for interviews. Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who coached in the last two Super Bowls and is widely considered one of the best future candidates, comes to mind.

The downside? The league might have to push back the offseason schedule to give teams time to get situated after hiring new staffs. Otherwise, there would be just a week or two to put staffs together before the annual scouting combine (which was canceled this year due to the pandemic). The league might have to push the start of free agency and draft back a week or two to accommodate such a change.

▪ Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the team agreed to a restructured contract this week that will allow him to return to Pittsburgh on a much smaller cap number. Per multiple reports, Roethlisberger’s salary has gone from $19 million to $14 million, but it was structured in a way that gives the Steelers $15 million in cap relief.

Roethlisberger, who turned 39 this week, was set to cost more than $41 million against the cap before the deal was reworked. Pittsburgh gave Roethlisberger a league minimum salary of just over $1 million while the rest of his cash will come via signing bonus. Voidable years were added to the end of the deal to spread out that signing bonus, thus keeping his cap number manageable before his eventual retirement.

▪ The NFL’s new television rights deal could be coming in the next week that would give clarity to the league’s financial future, and potentially cause the 2021 salary cap to rise beyond the $180 million floor, which many teams would welcome.

According to the Sports Business Journal, CBS and NBC are expected to pay roughly $2 billion per season under the new deal, while Disney (owners of ESPN and ABC) will pay some $2.6 billion. It’s unknown how those deals would immediately impact the salary cap that should be set when the new league year begins March 17, the same day free agents can begin signing deals with new teams.

Either way, the league is purportedly expecting those agreements to be made in the next week.