Follow us here and through the game for our live coverage of the calls and rules interpretations of Super Bowl 50 from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
Clete Blakeman is the referee for Super Bowl 50. His all-star crew includes:
| Yrs | 2015 crew | College | Occupation | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R | 34 | Clete Blakeman | 8 | Nebraska | attorney | |
| U | 44 | Jeff Rice | 21 | Blakeman | Northwestern | attorney |
| HL | 106 | Wayne Mackie | 9 | Hussey | Colgate | director of operations, housing |
| LJ | 59 | Rusty Baynes | 6 | Hochuli | Auburn-Montgomery | general manager, safety services |
| FJ | 41 | Boris Cheek | 20 | Coleman | Morgan State | director of operations and management |
| SJ | 3 | Scott Edwards | 17 | Torbert | Alabama | environmental engineer |
| BJ | 61 | Keith Ferguson | 16 | Hussey | San Jose State | sales |
| ALT | R | Tony Corrente | 21 | Cal State-Fullerton | college officiating coordinator | |
| ALT | U | Butch Hannah | 17 | Anderson | Middle Tennessee State | retired federal probation officer |
| ALT | LINE | Jerry Bergman | 14 | Coleman | Robert Morris | sales executive |
| ALT | DEEP | Adrian Hill | 6 | Hochuli | Buffalo | software engineer |
| ALT | DEEP | Keith Washington | 8 | Corrente | Virginia Military Institute | program financial analyst |
- Replay official: Charles Stewart
- Replay assistant: Jimmy Oldham
- Supervisor: Garth DeFelice
- Observers: Dean Blandino, Al Riveron
Image: Photo by Bill Sitzmann/Omaha Magazine. Football Zebras graphic by Ben Austro.
How in the world was Mike Carey ever an NFL official? The ball was obviously moving!
Clear failure of the referee in upholding incomplete pass on Carolina. The ball was clearly in control of the Panther and never touched the ground. I don’t know what Mr. Blakeman was seeing on the replay, but the views shown on the broadcast are clear. The greatest problem with his call is that it led to a fumble touchdown two plays later.
Ball clearly hit the ground and rotated 360 degrees. You can;t listen to Jim Nance and Mike Carey. I told my wife during the review whatever Carey calls it’ll be ruled the opposite!
The Incomplete pass charged to Carolina was another gift to the Manning family. The ball NEVER touched the ground, his hand was under the ball and it did not touch after his roll, it was controlled until the end. You are blind. Maybe you can get glasses with the replay team.
The ball doesn’t spin like that for nothing unless it’s a basketball.
How could that call not be reversed the whole country saw it and even retired official said it was a catch. What are they looking at
Sherman are you watching the same game we are smh
The spin had nothing to do with the fact the ball did not touch the ground. He controlled it till the end.
Watch the replay.
I thought Cotchery caught that ball.
But, judging from the comments here, and the call being upheld as incomplete… it was not an easy call at all. Still, I thought he got his hand under the ball and secured a catch.
Must be Carolina fans I take it?
http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/197920/197920
When viewed in slow motion, you could see the ball land in Cotchery’s hands. As Broncos safety Darian Stewart tackled Cotchery, the ball shifted and moved to Cotchery’s left hand. It touched the ground as he grasped it in his left hand and rolled over. The ball again moved before Cotchery grabbed it for good and stood up.
missed catch review and off sides missed by refs both helping the broncos on the field goal miss was big so far…..is this game in denver
How many times will the panther lineman get away with OBVIOUS holding ?
Wish I could upload this pic…..https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1016228275106068&set=p.1016228275106068&type=3&theater
A second crucial no call on pass interference for the Broncos. Some of the missed calls are really hurting the Panthers in this game.
Turnovers is hurting Carolina more than anything.
Denver is lined up in the neutral zone on the past 2 plays…no call. Its a good thing the Broncos dominated this game because the crew was inconsistent and not very good in general. And they are supposedly the best this league has to offer.
Mark shultz,
The ball?did not squirt out it was illegally batted. Very clear miss by the refs. What was clete?watching obviously not the ball.
You’re the only one who caught that.
I see things others most others don’t. If the nfl was as forward as the nba they would tell you the?exact same thing.
My offseason talk with roger will?focus on this and of course getting blandino to leave. He is very inconsistent.
Look closely at that first replay. Very clear threw the ball toward. Look closely Miller’s left hand. Please try to defend the refs on this one. Feel free to make something up like ben. You remember his day in January of 2015 where he said dez Bryant switching hands wasnt a football move but josh cribbs standing still was a football move.
good job by the crew. and so glad the black lives matter qb lost and showed his true colors at the end of the game and post game.
Question…. Why was there not a 10 second runoff for the Carolina false start with under 2 minutes in the 1st half?
Otherwise, the officiating was good, the quality of play was not.
More mistakes tonight than there should have been, for a supposed all-star crew. Here are just a few. For starters, in 2d quarter at about 9.16 we had interference with the opportunity to catch a kick. 10.1.1. Item 1. Missed call. Big one, and obvious. Don’t know what the deep officials were looking at. Perhaps the BJ couldn’t see past his huge gut. Love how Minion Schultz above writes “good work by deep officials.” Not really. It was a missed call. Lack of a fair catch signal has nothing to do with anything. The defender brushed the receiver as ball arrived that has to draw a flag. A really big miss was the DOF on Gano’s missed field goal. Huge miss. This has to be called as the defensive end gains a huge advantage with this early start, albeit only a second. Camera parallax tough to see, but this was DOF and needed to be called in this situation. Huge miss as Panthers would have had a second crack to make it 13-10. Monster mistake. There was an illegal blindside block called I need to look at, but not sure it was there. Then, a very embarrassing mechanical mistake by R in 4th quarter on Newton’s fumble. Instead of bagging it and staying patient (AND FOCUSED) and back sliding to GL in reverse mechanics, he rushed into the scrum and got caught inside, got turned around and fell down. Simply embarrassing for an official at this level. Next series on 3rd down the deep wing throws a hold – marginal at best was there really a material restriction? The better judgment is no. The receiver’s feet got hung up in the crappy turf and he slipped but it seems the calling official saw this and believed a hold had something to do with this. In any event there was no effect on the play, so the better decision on this would be to let it go. Marginal call. In addition, whatever happened to NFL officials being in good shape? The R certainly is, but the H and L had guts, the U and B had bigger guts, and the 2 deep wings? Passable. All in all, not an unexpected way to close out another season of poor officiating across the board. And I haven’t touched on all the mistakes, there were at least 3 or 4 more including a UNS that should not have been thrown in the first half. It was not a game control foul it should not have been thrown at all. Overall a C grade at best. Unacceptable for a game of this magnitude.
Vet almost a 100% answer by being out of position R missed a veey clear illegal batting on von miller
Upon seeing the camera angle provided by ESPN, the challenged incomplete pass was indeed incomplete. It is a pity CBS did not show that angle during the game.
Not a perfect game by the refs, but a well-run NFL game–it felt like a professional game throughout. The refs seemed willing to throw flags when necessary (the unsportsmanlike conduct on Talib near the beginning of the game and the third-down holding call on the Broncos). There was certainly a “let them play” philosophy in the defensive backfield, but it seemed consistent.
The lack of a kick catch interference flag seemed like a big miss, but in the event that penalty would have been declined anyway. The early Carolina pass looked incomplete in real time and to my amateur eye seemed “more incomplete” on the replay–the ball hit the ground and then moved around the receiver’s body as he rolled over–but I’ll defer to more experienced eyes.
It was a good end to the year for the zebras–a nice comeback from some of the ghastly errors early in the season
Vet, what are your thoughts on the catch/no catch in the 1st? Did the HL get it right? Evidently, most here (me included) thought that it was a miss.
Crusty vet– Excellent commentary and rant.
Not sure why you did not address Cotchery’s catch that was ruled incomplete. Did you think that he did not make that catch? The real tragedy of that call is that they got it wrong even on replay and cost the Panthers a time out and an extra challenge. Not too mention that a few plays later Cam got strip sacked for a TD.
As for the rest – spot on the fitness of officials, that Clete jumped in to that pile too quickly on the Newton’s fumble, the DOF that should have been called, interference on the punt catch. I thought the def hold on Norman was legit call even though the pass was clearly uncatchable.
drr345: good question. The referees, however, got it right. The 10 second run off only applies if the offense doesn’t get properly set before the false start.
John: Go to the other section entitled “5 observations….” and scroll down. I provided my analysis on the major plays in the game. The analysis is in 4 sections, as this site wouldn’t upload a 7 page analysis.