The officials, of course, are at the mercy of their union, and will run ALL the risk in this stare down.  There are already officials that were set to move up the ranks.  There are already NCAA Officials that are waiting their turn to move up the ladder.  Is anyone really going to tell me the NFL would cave to keep Bill Levy as a Referee.  The NFL will benefit from the union making it difficult to bring back the existing officials.  Just like baseball benefitted from the mass resignation years ago, here is another example of a unneeded union defending people who don’t need the money anyway.

The NFL will won this fight and the game will be better for it.