Ed Hochuli, arguably the most well known of the regular NFL referees, has been running training sessions with other regular officials for when a deal between them and the NFL is made. Hochuli has been running them every Tuesday night via a conference call where attendance, according to Sports Illustrated's Peter King, has ranged from 90-110 officials per week.
An unnamed referee was interviewed by King, and said he was happy with how Hochuli has set these sessions up:
"That's one of the reasons why the officials will be up to date and ready to go,'' the officiating source said. "Ed grabbed the bull by the horns and made sure that whenever this thing ended, the regular officials would be ready to go back to work immediately.''
If a deal between the officials and the NFL is struck within the next 24 hours, regular NFL officials will be in control of games this coming Sunday.