Kevin Seifert
Kalyn Kahler
Kalyn Kahler
ESPN
Kalyn Kahler is a senior NFL writer at ESPN. Kalyn reports on a range of NFL topics. She reported about the influence of coaching agents on NFL hiring and found out what current and former Cowboys players really think about the tour groups of fans that roam about The Star every day. Before joining ESPN in July of 2024, Kalyn wrote for The Athletic, Defector, Bleacher Report and Sports Illustrated. She began her career at Sports Illustrated as NFL columnist Peter King’s assistant. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she was a varsity cheerleader. In her free time, Kalyn takes Spanish classes and teaches Irish dance. You can reach out to Kalyn via email.
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PHOENIX — 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 league source said that training of the new replacement officials will begin May 1.
According to a source, once that happens, “The opportunity to reach an agreement with our current union becomes a bigger challenge, just from simple economics.”
That effectively leaves about a month for the sides to bridge what league sources said are wide gaps in their proposals, from economics to the seasonal structure of the job.
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NFLRA executive director Scott Green did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with the NFLRA expires May 31. The league sent a memo to each club last week prohibiting public comment on the situation. But as owners, league officials and team staffers gathered this weekend at the Arizona Biltmore resort, sources painted a dire portrait of the likelihood of an agreement before replacement officials are hired.
One of the league sources said the league office is expecting and preparing for a lockout.
“We are so close to expiration and so far apart on economics, that unless an act of God gets involved…” the source said.
During the last lockout in 2012, a league source said the league’s mistake was waiting until July to prepare for replacement officials.
“To expect people to jump from college to the pros and change in speed in that short of time is destined to be a challenge to succeed,” the league source said. “We’re not going to do that.
“There will be no panic, and we have begun preparations for the expiration. We have to do it. Otherwise, it would be just gross negligence.”
According to sources, the NFL has offered the NFLRA a six-year deal that averages annual raises of 6.45%. The average NFL official earned $385,000 in 2025. The league has also pushed the NFLRA to allow several fundamental changes to officials’ job structure, which the NFLRA has largely resisted.
“To expect people to jump from college to the pros and change in speed in that short of time is destined to be a challenge to succeed. We’re not going to do that. There will be no panic, and we have begun preparations for the expiration. We have to do it. Otherwise, it would be just gross negligence.”
League source to ESPN
“The owners are alarmed that this negotiation has been as challenging as it’s been,” a league source said. “They are alarmed that the union has resisted the performance and accountability measures.”
Those measures include:
Increasing the probationary period for new officials from three to five years
Shortening the “dead period” during the offseason to allow for more training, including a requirement for lower-performing officials to work spring football games to help improve their performances
Reducing the seniority-based approach to covering playoff games and largely replacing it with assignments based on performance
“We really want to follow the model, which is the NFL’s kind of DNA, of you pay for performance,” a league source said. “You have to perform every day. Players do it, coaches do it, lawyers do it, owners do it, and we continue trying to test ourselves and improve.”
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