The National Football League has a long list of things it does not like, including declining television ratings, controversies that alienate league sponsors, and modern research into the effect of having one’s head battered for a living. One thing the NFL really doesn’t like, however, is being publicly embarrassed.
All the other stuff is bad for business, but a perception that the league is populated by clowns who don’t know what they are doing is the biggest rankler of them all. It is a prideful organization if nothing else.
At every game, the visible representatives of the league’s authority and competence are seven men (and, very occasionally, a lone woman) running about the field in striped shirts and black pants trying very hard to keep order within a disorderly game.