With Referees Out, NFL Stars Throw Flag on Novice Fill-Ins

These preseason games usually carry little meaning beyond an excuse for fans to tailgate, but this year’s batch has presented something different: an unintentional comedy routine from a roster of replacement officials, many of whom might have had trouble even dreaming about working at the game’s highest level just a few months ago.

A labor dispute between the league and its regular officials, however, turned those pipe dreams into reality. Yet to many, the replacements’ performances so far have done little to dissuade visions of an impending disaster. On Sept. 5, when the Super Bowl champion Giants open the regular season against the Dallas Cowboys, what happens on the field will be meaningful — to players, coaches, fans, owners, oddsmakers and anyone else who has a stake in America’s most popular game.

“I actually overheard one of the refs saying he only refereed glorified high school games,” Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz said recently. “I don’t even know what that means.”

During last weekend’s games, the issues continued. Robbie Gould, the kicker for the Chicago Bears, wrote on Twitter that one crew of replacements was “clueless,” and that was before he saw the officials in Friday’s game between the Giants and the Bears incorrectly give the Giants an extra play at the end of the first quarter.

Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe also took to Twitter, writing that the regular officials need to “kiss and make up” with the N.F.L. because the replacements are embarrassing. This came after a game in which the officials deemed that a runner had been tackled when he was still standing and ruled that a pass had hit the ground when it never was close.

“I would be concerned if it went into the regular season, certainly,” New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees told reporters recently, referring to the use of replacements. “It’s just like on a team, if we say we are going to put five rookies in front of you and a bunch of first-year players catching the ball and running the football around you. You just don’t have that same level of trust and confidence.”

Roger Goodell, the N.F.L.’s commissioner, is less concerned. He said at a public appearance last week that he thought the replacements would do “a very credible job” and added that the lockout of the regular officials was necessary to the league’s long-term success, even if short-term sacrifices were required.

Negotiations between the league and the officials’ union broke down in the off-season, with the sides divided on a variety of issues, including salaries, retirement benefits and the number of games officials are guaranteed to work each season.

This is not the first time the N.F.L. has used replacement officials. In 2001 the league employed replacements through the first week of the regular season.

When the N.F.L. was in this situation 11 years ago, however, many of the replacements were officials who at least had experience working major-college games. This time the replacements have less impressive backgrounds.

For a number of reasons, high-level college officials are reluctant to moonlight in the N.F.L. as replacements. They do not want to appear disloyal to their college conference supervisors — some of whom are also regular N.F.L. officials — or jeopardize their current positions with little chance of remaining in the pros after the labor issue is settled.

The N.F.L. declined to make any of the replacements available for interviews (citing its standard in-season policy for all officials), but they appear to have a wide variety of résumés.

In addition to Craig Ochoa, the referee who used to work in the Lingerie Football League (in which models play in underwear) as well as in college leagues, officials include Jim Winterberg, who last season worked Football Championship Subdivision college games like Wagner versus Central Connecticut State, which was played in front of a crowd of 2,357. Others, like Michael Malito, who worked a game between the Giants and the Jacksonville Jaguars on Aug. 10, had never officiated above the Division III college level.

Concerns about the replacements vary depending on the interested parties. Some coaches have wondered about consistency from the officials from game to game. DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the players union, said his organization was worried about safety.

“I’ve said before that on a scale of 1 to 10, I think this is a 12,” Mr. Smith said. “With the regular season approaching, my level of concern is only increasing.”

Ray Anderson, the league’s vice president for football operations, called the union’s worries a stretch, and defended the replacements’ abilities.

“We will not come out and say they are without their warts, but we will say that we’ve seen improvement every week,” Mr. Anderson said. “At the end of it, we are very confident that this group of current officials will be credible.”

To be fair, the regular officials would readily acknowledge that they are hardly perfect; high-profile mistakes are made every season. But the speed and size of the players in the N.F.L. make league experience important, and some of the errors in the first three weeks of the preseason have been mind-boggling.

In one game, officials ruled that a punt had landed in the end zone when it was nearly at the 5-yard line. In another, an official identified a player returning a kick as being guilty of holding, which is impossible.

In the preseason, moments like that can be laughed off. But with the games that matter looming, the level of concern is rising.

“Most of these officials have worked high school games or small colleges, and now they’re going to be standing next to Eli Manning?” said Jim Tunney, who retired in 1991 after 31 years as an N.F.L. referee.

“When I started, I had only a few years in Division I, but I had a lot of other officials around me who could help me,” Mr. Tunney added. “Who are these guys going to ask?”

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