AMA Recommends Maintenance of Certification for NFL Referees

CHICAGO, IL – The NFL referee leadership, in a desperate effort to address what can only be described as the most horrific officiating seen in the 95 year history of the league, reached out to the American Medical Association, to ask how they make sure “doctors don’t suck at their job.”

The senior director of officiating lamented to the AMA in an open letter, “We have always felt by hiring NFL referees as part-time employees that work 1 day each week we are doing absolutely everything possible to ensure they are experts in their field. What else could we possibly do?”

Referencing some massive recent blunders, including one official prematurely ending a game confusing the NFL and College football rules, the lead referee inquired to the AMA board, “If a doctor accidentally removes the wrong organ during surgery, gives someone the wrong medication, or amputates the wrong leg…you completely ignore it and don’t address it in any way, correct?”

A response letter signed by the entirety of the AMA directorial staff had some helpful suggestions to the NFL referee leadership as to how they monitor physicians to cut down on global suckiness:

1) We have doctors take hard tests to make sure they know “the rules” of medicine before turning them loose on society. You may consider some sort of process whereby the referees are exposed to and tested on the rules of the game before placing them on national TV.

2) In general, we recommend physicians practice their craft full-time and avoid taking on secondary completely unrelated jobs during the week only to put on their “Doctor” hat on Sundays.

3) Because medicine is a constantly evolving field with new breakthroughs and innovations we have a process called “Maintenance of Certification” to ensure physicians remain current with the medical system. Because the NFL occasionally has a rare rule modification you may want to consider a similar process for your part-time experts.

4) If a physician screws up they are generally reprimanded or sent for additional education pertinent to the error, not simply “moved to a different time frame or network”.

When reached for comment the NFL lead ref was unavailable as he was mid-argument with his wife pertaining to several inadvertent whistle blows disrupting the family dinner.