Steelers MMQB: NFL Offseason News
By Kim Myers
Anything for good publicity
Jan 25, 2014; Mobile, AL, USA; Official Sarah Thomas during the first half of a game between the South squad and the North squad at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
The NFL is all about putting on a good face. While the NFL fans know and love involves mainly our teams hopefully beating the snot out of our rivals on Sundays, the corporate head of the NFL is a cold, calculated monster that makes moves based on what will look the best to the public. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it horribly backfires. Last season is a perfect example of that. Pick your scandal and you’ll see that the NFL cares only about what looks the best.
So maybe when Jaguars defensive tackle Sen’Darrick Marks said that the NFL is only hiring Sarah Thomas to be the league’s first ever female official they were only doing it to earn some goodwill with fans. He compared the situation with the drafting of Michael Sam last year. Naturally, making that comparison is bound to draw some headlines but the reality is the NFL didn’t draft Sam, the Rams did. And then they cut him. Sarah Thomas is an entirely different situation.
Our staff writer, Lori Paddock, already posed the question as to how Thomas will be treated by fans. She’ll be criticized one way or another because that’s just the nature of the job. I don’t doubt the league thinks that bringing on a female official will bring them good publicity and when it comes down to it, if she’s not as bad as Jeff Triplette, then they definitely have improved their officiating crews with the hire.
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