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The use of part-time officials is one big thing the NFL has gotten right over the years. I can't say for sure, but I suspect that there has never been a "high school teacher" working as an on-field NFL official in decades. The NFL insists on using part-time officials who are typically highly-respected, well-paid executives from Monday to Friday. They do this because a guy who is a regional vice president for Exxon/Mobil or Citicorp is far less likely to throw a game for gamblers than a high school gym teacher.

You've got a good point in terms of corruption, however, the rules have gotten so Byzantine that I wonder how well the part-time refs can really keep up with it. For example, the NFL made the "horse collar" tackle illegal this year. In the first two or three weeks of the game, I must've seen that penalty called a half-dozen times. Last night, I saw three horse-collar tackles that were uncalled. The problem is the rulebook, not the refs.

A friend of mine is in a business group with a guy in the insurance business who works as an NFL official. What these guys go through every week between games is unbelievable. The league office closely scrutinizes each and every game, and requires each crew to be available for a review session to address particularly controversial calls.

There was a game between the Giants and Cowboys about 10-15 years ago in which the officials mistakenly awarded the Giants a safety on a kickoff that had been fumbled into the end zone and downed by the Dallas kick returner. The on-field officials got the call wrong, and yet it was upheld after review in the officials' box. The entire crew of replay officials from that game was fired before the following weekend.