A surprising number of NFL officials are lawyers as their day jobs. Or perhaps not so surprising given how much the job revolves around thoroughly understanding and interpreting rules. What I find more surprising is the officials make a solid six-figure income for something that’s kind of one day a week of working over roughly a six month period. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, and of course lots of travel, but it seems like a pretty good gig to me. I doubt I would have a second job if that was my career, personally.

It’s interesting to me, at the NFL level if I know the referee’s name then it’s probably because they’re pretty good. At the collegiate level (for football and basketball) if I know the ref’s name it’s probably not a good thing. The only college ref I can name that’s not for bad reasons is Ron Cherry, and he’s retired now.