The Chicago Bears have enough challenges to sort through before next season. Multiple key defensive players left in free agency or were cut. D.J. Moore was traded on offense. Center Drew Dalman retired and they still haven’t truly settled their left tackle situation. Head coach Ben Johnson is good at what he does, but even he doesn’t have all the answers. The last thing he and the Bears need is for the NFL to make the situation even more complicated. The league already screwed them over on the compensatory pick situation with Ian Cunningham. Now it’s about to get worse.
According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, the NFL and the referees’ union have reached an impasse on negotiations over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The two sides are said to be miles apart, and time is running out. The current CBA expires on May 31st. Most people inside the league can’t imagine a deal coming together in time to avoid a lockout. As a result, higher-ups in the NFL have begun the process of hiring replacement officials, marking the second time this has happened since 2012.
NFL owners are “alarmed” by the state of negotiations with the NFL Referees Association and have authorized staff members to begin hiring and onboarding replacement officials in the coming weeks, league sources said Sunday at the start of the league meetings.
The NFL began compiling a list of college-level officials to recruit earlier this month, and owners are expected this week to approve a sweeping set of replay enhancements to support replacement officials in preseason and regular-season games. A separate league source said that training of the new replacement officials will begin May 1.
Life is about to get much tougher for Ben Johnson.
Anybody who was around 14 years ago when the replacement refs were inserted into the league will have PTSD. It was an absolute fiasco. Guys clearly didn’t fully understand their responsibilities. Clock management was atrocious. Refs spent way too long reviewing plays and reaching a decision. They didn’t understand the rules, were accused of being biased towards certain teams, and egregiously missed calls that cost teams games. Everybody remembers the infamous “Fail Mary” between the Seahawks and Packers.
Officials already miss basic plays way too often as it is, and these guys are experienced veterans. You honestly expect new officials to come in, get a crash course on the rulebook in just a few months, and be ready to go for the 2026 season? The NFL is kidding itself. It might not be as bad as it was in 2012, but it’s still going to be ugly. Johnson will have to put in extra time getting players ready for the inevitable screwups that will come. He can’t afford to have guys lose their composure because of an obviously awful call.
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The Bears must work to keep guys disciplined.
There is a strong probability that replacement refs will have an itchier trigger finger on penalties. That puts added pressure on players to avoid sloppy mistakes, which was a common issue for the Bears last season. Ben Johnson has made it his mission to clean up those things, but the margin for error will be much thinner this time. The last time the referees and the NFL finally reached an agreement on a new CBA was late September. That means the Bears are probably looking at least a month of replacement refs.
Not ideal. It could last longer if the NFLRA continues to dig its heels in on certain key issues. While that is their right, the fact remains that it will hurt the NFL product. All the Bears can do is hope it doesn’t screw them out of some crucial games. They already have what looks to be one of the toughest schedules on paper, not counting the division. Having to battle against the refs on top of that makes getting back to the playoffs so much harder.
