As the American airline industry continues to try and recover from yesterday’s nationwide ground stop, the NFL is adjusting its refereeing assignments to prevent being shorthanded.
Thousands of flights were delayed or cancelled on Friday as a technology issue halted takeoffs across the country.
While college football has been thrown into chaos with teams stranded the day before games, the NFL is trying to ensure that its officials will be able to get to games on time.
In a statement to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the league said: ‘Due to the ongoing nationwide impact to air travel this weekend, the NFL has adjusted its officiating assignments for Week 10 games, reassigning officials to games within driving distance of their hometowns.’
The league added that the adjustments ‘necessitate that three back up referees – umpires Barry Anderson and Duane Heydt and side judge Don Willard – will work as referees in the following games: Carolina-New Orleans – Duane Heydt Jacksonville-Tennessee – Barry Anderson Miami-Indianapolis and Pittsburgh-Cincinnati – Don Willard.’
It’s a particularly long trek for Willard, who is serving double duty. He’ll work the Miami @ Indianapolis game at 1:00pm before driving over 100 miles to Cincinnati for the Sunday Night Football contest between the Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The NFL has re-assigned its referees to be within driving distance of their home towns
This comes after a nationwide ground stop at all airports for the first time since 9/11
Passengers were stranded across the country after a halt in takeoffs that lasted for hours
‘Each of the league’s 17 officiating crews have a backup referee identified, and that individual trains throughout the year to work at the referee position should the need arise,’ the statement concluded.
More than 2,000 flights were cancelled as a result of the longest nationwide ground stop since 9/11 – leading to stranded passengers all over the United States.
College sports teams were left scrambling to find alternative methods of travel to get to their away games in time.
Some schools, like Purdue (at Iowa) and North Texas (at UTSA), loaded their teams onto buses to drive to their nearby games.
Others – such as Arizona State (at UCF) – were forced to head back home before trying to fly across the country early Saturday morning.
The FAA says the stop was due to new technology being added to the nation’s air traffic control system, which caused ‘intermittent’ communications and radar gaps.
