







There is a pro football commissioner who's unafraid to blow the whistle on underperforming refs.

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There is a head of an American football league who has fired an officiating crew because he felt the integrity of his sport was at stake.

There is a pigskin boss who was willing to bite the bullet and admit he made a mistake.

His name is Mitch Mortaza. He is the commissioner of the Lingerie Football League. And he feels the NFL has lowered its standards.

Mortaza was surprised to learn a referee he says he dismissed for poor performance, Craig Ochoa, had been picked up by the NFL and placed into the NFL's marquee Hall of Fame game. Ochoa has not served in a regular-season game so far, but he remains with the NFL as an alternate. And Mortaza just can't get over it.

"It was a bit of a shock to see guys that couldn't officiate in our league were officiating in the NFL," Mortaza says.

[Dan Wetzel: Roger Goodell needs to immediately clean up NFL officiating mess]

You may be surprised to learn Mortaza actually cares about the officiating in his league. Not many fans paying to see the Los Angeles Temptation and the Vegas Sin are going to fume about a blown call. It's safe to say the majority of the Lingerie Football League's fans want laundry on the field, but not the orange, flag-sized kind.

But Mortaza becomes indignant when he speaks of his decision to get rid of an entire officiating crew, which included Ochoa.

"They were hurting our overall broadcast caliber," Mortaza says. "And if it's opening up our players for potential injury, those things raise red flags here. Is it hurting overall credibility? When either of those two things are compromised, it's time to start thinking about parting ways."

[Michael Silver: The worst call in NFL history? | Photos]

And parting ways is what Mortaza decided to do. "The entire crew was released due to several poorly called games which included missed calls, poor judgment and poor presentation for broadcast," Mortaza says.



The NFL disputes this, as it did when ProFootballTalk.com asked the league in August about Ochoa's background in the Lingerie Football League. "He said that is not true," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello wrote in an email, referring to Ochoa. "He was not dismissed by that league."

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An email to Ochoa was not returned.