Alberto Riveron is back in the NFL’s officiating office.
A league spokesperson confirmed to The Athletic that the former head of officiating has returned, this time as a rules analyst working this season as the liaison between the NFL’s officiating headquarters in New York — the Art McNally Gameday Central (AMGC) — and broadcast partner rules analysts during prime-time games on Thursday, Sunday and Monday.
Riveron led NFL officiating for four seasons and is probably best known for presiding over the disastrous one-year experiment making pass interference a reviewable call in 2019. He retired from his post in August 2021 and hadn’t been involved with NFL officiating since. The league says Riveron’s new position is intended to provide “accurate and timely information” to network analysts but has “no role in officiating decisions.”
“There has always been communication between the AMGC and the networks,” said Michael Signora, the NFL’s senior vice president of football and international communications. “But this is new, having a dedicated, former referee in the position of communicating directly with the network officiating analysts with no other responsibilities.”
The league did not make Riveron or any representative from officiating available for this story, suggesting it would be best for The Athletic to reach out to the network analysts and producers. A spokesperson for NBC suggested it would be best to talk to the NFL about “game day procedures/etc.” ESPN said it needed more time to make someone available and Amazon did not respond by publication time.
Former NFL referee Gene Steratore, now the rules analyst for CBS, has not worked with Riveron in this capacity, as CBS does not have prime-time games. He said he typically receives a text message from someone every Sunday morning who will serve as his point of contact for his game. Through that person, he can reach senior officials at the AMGC for rules interpretation or clarification, if necessary.
Two team officials whose work involves knowledge of the league’s rules and replay policies, and who were granted anonymity in order to discuss the matter freely, told The Athletic they don’t receive much communication from the league about reviews. Until Signora outlined the decision-making process in an email to The Athletic, they both weren’t clear on exactly how many people were involved.
“There is an individual monitoring each game and communicating constantly with the replay official and replay assistant,” Signora wrote. “A supervisor monitors the game, chooses the video images to be sent during a review and communicates with the replay official and/or referee during a review, assisting with game administration if necessary, once a decision has been made. The decision maker, typically (NFL senior vice president of officiating) Walt Anderson with assistance from (senior VP of officiating administration) Perry Fewell if more than one replay review is occurring at a time, for example, monitors the games, assists in choosing the video images to analyze during the review process and reviews all reviewable aspects of the play. Walt collaborates with the referee about the play and confirms if the on-field decision is reversed or stands. None of these people above are paying close attention to the broadcast. That is the role Al is fulfilling.”
Signora confirmed that Riveron listens to the broadcast audio, but said that Anderson, who typically handles all prime-time replay decisions, is not, “because he is communicating with the various referees and replay assistants in making his replay-related decisions.”
(Photo of Riveron: Mark Brown/Getty Images)
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