American Football
NFL closes in on new CBA deal: will replacement referees be avoided?
Watch the 2026 NFL season live on DAZN
It looks like the NFL is going to avoid the replacement referee debacle it was staring down just a few months ago.
The NFLRA has a ratification vote pencilled in for Thursday night, per ESPN, with talks having moved far enough that a deal looks within reach before the CBA runs out on May 31.
The lesson the NFL took from 2012's referees
The league didn't hang around after talks broke down last winter, training replacement officials as replacements in April and pushing through rules at March's Annual League Meeting to let staff call games remotely from New York.
Their motivation, in part, was to avoid a repeat of 2012, when the performance of replacement referees was heavily criticised by viewers following another similar CBA stalemate.
None of it will be needed now, assuming Thursday's vote goes through and approval is reached before May 31.
What the NFL wanted from a new deal
Avoiding replacement referees wasn't the only motivation, with owners pushing to extend probationary periods for new officials, among other structural changes.
Whether any of that made it through won't be clear until terms are out, but Thursday should answer most of the outstanding questions.
