If you are a fan of basketball, you are well aware of flopping — the art of exaggerating contact to try to draw a foul on your opponent. Well, the art of flopping is also alive and well in the NFL, fans just haven’t been heard a referee call it such. That is, until referee…
#457964914 / gettyimages.com NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino today released the Week 8 media video. Topics this week included interception/touchback rules, crackback blocks, and timing rules (video download). Low blocks and crackback blocks were a topic of discussion during the Cardinals-Eagles game. The rule is that any player that is two or more…
Dean Blandino, the NFL vice president of officiating, released his weekly media tape discussing the calls of the previous week (video download). First, Blandino addressed the preventative officiating mechanics of umpire Carl Paganelli signaling to Patriots linebacker Dont’a Hightower that he was in an illegal formation over center on the Jets last-second field goal attempt.…
Washington defensive lineman Chris Baker was ejected Sunday, but his penalty should not have been called. Was the ejection in error?
After wild card weekend, it always strikes me — only seven more meaningful football games this year. In an attempt not to get too maudlin, here are five things that stuck out to me in regard to the officiating this past Wild Card weekend. Jeff Triplette’s crew called an awesome game Triplette, rightly or wrongly,…
NFC Wild Card Playoff Follow us here for rolling coverage of the calls and rules interpretations of the Saints-Eagles Wild Card Playoff game from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. (If you see continue reading below, click it to see the entire feed.) If you have any questions or comments, use the comments section of this…
Football Zebras has confirmed the officiating crews for the Wild Card weekend. Officials are listed with their uniform number, years experience (including this season), the crew each official worked with in the regular season (by the referee’s name), college, and outside occupation. All times are Eastern. Three alternates are assigned to each game: one is…
6 known suspensions of officials for on-field incidents The NFL rarely has suspended officials for their conduct on the field, although it is possible that some may have occurred without public knowledge. Also, there are two known cases of officials (not included here) who were originally assigned to the Super Bowl and had that assignment…
Some of the officiating news items from Sunday: A couple of puzzling replay reviews: Mike Carey allowed a catch to stand, despite clear evidence the pass was incomplete, according to our Roundtable experts [Ben Austro, Football Zebras]. Bill Vinovich ruled a player touched a loose ball with his foot while out of bounds to reverse…
Football Zebras Roundtable We had a few calls this week that were borderline judgement calls. How close were they? Former NFL officiating supervisors Jim Daopoulos and Larry Upson helped us unpack three controversial calls from Week 5. Both Larry and Jim did extensive game video while working in the league office. Their analysis determined the…