The UFL crowd in St. Louis was getting spicy last week. The hometown Battlehawks had just settled for a 38-yard field goal against the Columbus Aviators, having failed to convert a third down after an apparent pass interference foul had gone uncalled.
So when the FOX broadcast came back from a commercial break, it took a step that was unprecedented in pro football. Sideline reporter Brock Huard conducted a brief in-game interview with the official closest to the play, a notable advancement of the UFL’s efforts to establish transparency in its officiating decisions.
It’s one thing to listen in on officiating discussions, as spring football broadcasts have done for years. It’s quite another to hear from officials themselves, who typically only speak publicly via pool reports or written statements after games.
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“It’s not something we want to do multiple times a game or even every game,” stated Dean Blandino, the UFL’s head of officiating. “But we never get to hear from the official. We as viewers of games just sit there say, ‘Well, how could they not throw the flag?’ This time, you hear the official’s explanation and you go, ‘Oh, OK.’ You might ultimately disagree, but it makes some sense. And that’s been our whole goal with the full transparency. It’s the ‘why.’ You’ve never gotten the full ‘why,’ and we’re giving that to people.”
From their perch in the UFL’s command center, Blandino and fellow officiating guru Mike Pereira have been explaining calls and narrating their replay decisions for three years. The UFL also allows broadcasters to air discussions between officials, or between the referee and Blandino or Pereira, throughout the game.
Last week in St. Louis, however, FOX executives asked Blandino if they could interview field judge Gabriel DeLeon after his no-call on a third-down incompletion to Battlehawks receiver Hakeem Butler. Blandino agreed.
It’s not uncommon for UFL sideline reporters to chat with officials during games, to help inform their in-game analysis, but in this case, Huard pulled DeLeon aside on camera shortly after DeLeon wrapped up a discussion with Battlehawks coach Ricky Proehl.
“If there’s a back shoulder [pass],” DeLeon told Huard, “and I’m looking at that and there’s no material restriction, I’m just going to leave it alone, to be honest with you.”
UFL refs have been part of a new innovation. Will it catch on in the NFL? Photo by Jeffrey Brown/Icon SportswireHuard followed up by coaxing a more specific explanation.”So if the throw is not where it should be,” Huard stated, “[and] if that throw’s not there, you’re not going to reward a poor throw on something like that.””Yeah,” DeLeon replied. “That works for me.”DeLeon then pulled Huard to the sideline and cut the interview short as the teams lined up for the kickoff. But the essential message was conveyed in real time, making it central to any debate fans might have been having in the moment. Blandino also believes that in-game discussion of officiating decisions, whether it is from him and Pereira or an official on the field, can help focus postgame conversations on the competition rather than calls.Best of NFL Nation• How Steelers are coaching up rookie QB Allar
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“The transparency we’ve had has been really well received from everyone,” Blandino stated. “If you don’t like the call, you don’t like the call. But it does at least alleviate some of the issues and concerns that you’ll see, whether it’s NFL or college, where you just don’t get the why. They do have a pool reporter after the fact and sometimes that can be very vanilla and we just feel like we can say, ‘Hey, we don’t need to explain anything after the game because you heard it during it.’ You know what happened and then we can move on.”
The NFL has occasionally incorporated spring football ideas, most notably the kickoff alignment it adopted in 2024. And while it has designated former referee Walt Anderson as its public spokesman for the officiating department, the league remains far removed from the transparency the UFL now practices.
NFL officials are prohibited from speaking publicly about game decisions except in pool reports, and the topic was not a priority during recent negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Referees Association, sources stated.
“We have the benefit of playing only one game at any given time,” stated Blandino, who spent five years as the NFL’s vice president of officiating. “I think the NFL has other challenges and I’ve been there. I can’t sit here and say, ‘Well, the NFL should do this or should do that. It’s not necessarily apples to apples. They would have to work through those logistics or other factors that they have to consider. But I think we will see more transparency at some point, and ultimately I think that’s a good thing.”
