In a darkened meeting room at a Jacksonville, Fla., airport hotel, nine men huddle around a video projector, intently studying the screen.
The image of an Oakland Raiders linebacker is the center of attention. He has just made a tackle, but it's what he does next that's being scrutinized.
Acceptable reaction by an excited player? Or taunting?
During a game six days earlier, this NFL officiating crew considered the reaction acceptable. But now a supervisor was telling them they got it wrong. It should have been a 15-yard penalty.
So they play the video over and over again, at least 20 times.
Less than 24 hours later, they will be confronted by a similarly debatable situation -- Jacksonville receiver Dennis Northcutt catches a 10-yard pass over the middle and reacts by quickly spiking the ball.
Under a new rule this season, that's an automatic five-yard penalty.
But after a short conversation, the crew -- was that rebuke still ringing in their ears? -- changes it to a 15-yard taunting call because when the ball bounced up it grazed a defensive player.
And two days later, the NFL, with the benefit of replay, will disagree again.
No taunting. Should have been a five-yard penalty. Another downgrade for one of the league's top crews.
"We drive ourselves crazy on the littlest of details," says one of the men, "but it's simply because we expect the best."
This is a world few people outside the officials themselves ever see. As a general rule, the NFL does not allow its 120 officials to speak to the media.
But last week, this Times reporter was granted rare behind-the-scenes access to the officiating crew working the Atlanta Falcons-Jacksonville Jaguars game -- a group led by the referee who worked the last Super Bowl, Tony Corrente, a La Mirada High social studies teacher.
The access included traveling with Corrente on Saturday and shadowing his crew throughout the weekend, including immediately before and after the game. Then, as the men returned home -- one is an office manager for a Washington, D.C., law firm, another is a pastor who resides in Spokane, Wash. -- it was off to NFL headquarters in New York to observe the league's hair-splitting evaluation of the group's game-day performance.
The NFL is the only major sports league in the U.S. that does not employ full-time officials, but the men who work the games fly first class, eat in first-rate restaurants and are well paid. Depending on experience, officials receive between $2,750 and $8,150 per regular-season game, $5,000 per playoff game, and $10,000 for a Super Bowl, plus potential bonuses.
