Officiating crews for the 2016 season

47 thoughts on “Officiating crews for the 2016 season”

1. Morelli gets a whole new crew after the debacle in Baltimore.

2. It was more than the Baltimore game. For whatever reason, this crew was just snakebit last year. For Morelli, it was very surprising to us to see that his crew had so many issues. I don’t think it was a leadership problem, although that cannot be entirely ruled out as an issue. The league often splits up a crew when it has underperformed. Perhaps a new crew chief would help. Maybe an adjacent official helps improve a transplanted official’s performance. If an official can’t show sufficient improvement, then the process of putting an official on probation and ultimately terminating him/her will begin.

   It seems like a slow process, but you should expect your employer to exhaust all avenues before terminating you.

3. Can they request anything about the crew like who they want to work with or don’t want to? Or is it just information – “this year you are in this crew, period”

4. What Happened to Darryll and why is he not on gene’s crew anymore as a reply official?

5. Requests are granted, but they are weighed against the overall needs of the department. Is there an incoming rookie who would benefit from being adjacent to a Super Bowl official? Are there vacancies on other crews to be filled, either through retirement or reassignment? Also, the league is going to avoid placing too many newer officials on the same crew, especially 1st- and 2nd-year officials.

   In the past, crews were assembled regionally, roughly east/west, but that constrained the ability for the league office to put a weaker umpire in the east with the top referee in the west, for example.

   There are personality conflicts as well, much as one would expect with any cubicle-farm job, and the league does factor that in to an extent.

   There usually is some change to each of the crews every season, although a first-year white hat generally holds over the entire crew into the second year.

6. How did the female football official grade out during her year?

7. Why have we been seeing increasing SJ/FJ switching in the past few years? Is the league much keener now on individual officials and their place on a crew/ mentoring newbies that the few particulars of these positions don’t matter as much?

   I wonder with Veteri & Bergman as two 25-year veterans making the HL/LJ switch if that will become more common, too.

8. I believe that Jeff Bergman will enter his 26th season, not his 25th. His first year was in 1991, just as Jim Tunney, who wore 32 for years, retired.

9. The source is the NFL Record and Fact Book, and we carry forward information from year-to-year. (Occasionally we may drop a number or have an older occupation listed as a result.) I checked against the 2015 R&F book, and it has “24th year” for Jeff Bergman. I’ll do some checking to see if there is a discrepancy with the NFL’s listing. Thanks!

10. Hi Ben. I don’t have yet, the 2016 Directory from the National Football League Referees Association and, just to clear, the 2015 edition shows that Jeff Bergman is a NFL official since 1991. Hope you can use this information.

11. Irrespective of the 25-26 Bergman years, I’m still interested in the bigger conceptual question – what philosophy is behind the increased SJ/FJ shifting? What effect does it have on officials wanting to get to the Super Bowl (i.e., all of a sudden the colleagues you are competing with are different?) and with Bergman/Veteri are we going to start seeing that at HL/LJ too?

12. 11 of the 17 crews have changes at Umpire, including some rather experienced Umpires making moves from crews they had been on for a number of years (Rice moving from Clete Blakeman’s Crew over to Walt Coleman; Wash moving from the Cheffers crew over to Terry McCauley’s). Since the Referee/Umpire pairing works rather closely together, what is the story behind these moves?

13. Wow, that Triplette crew is going to be awful. Poor Jeff Bergman and Steve Freeman.

    How does Hugo work as a HL with Veteri as an LJ. Tony is going to have to help Hugo all game long. Luckily, Tony is a real pro and obviously a great R on that crew.

    And, yeah Morelli deserved a break. Now he has a reasonable crew.

14. Informative piece , I am thankful for the analysis – Does someone know where my company might locate a blank IA DoR 31-014b example to fill out ?

15. Hi Lelah, my work colleague used a fillable IA DoR 31-014b example here https://goo.gl/fSasmt.

16. How surprising that BJ/Greg Steed has been switched off last year’s crew. Wonder if it had to do with his R throwing him under the bus after the Giant/Jag game? Won’t be surprised! 4 out of 6 new officials on that crew, Huh!

17. Tony V has his work cut off for him, no doubt. Cruz does not belong and unless he improves a bunch very soon he may find himself on the outside looking in. I’ve been told officials can request to not be assigned on the crew they were with in the previous year which maybe the reason #77 lost 4 of the 6 from last year. Morrelli’s crew just didn’t work. Might have been the pressure of trying to carry the rookie. Rumor is she finished very, very, very far down the list at her position. If she wasn’t a she, she have to be worried going into this year, but with that extra factor she has, some how she’ll survive. Shame she is taking a spot away from a deserving official.

18. I thought officials wearing headsets was to speed up the game. Every game officials constantly gather on penalties. Can’t the official making the call tell the referee what the call is on his headset and play on? The line judge or head lines man makes an illegal procedure penalty call and runs towards the ref. For what use the headphones and be done with it. To me if that isn’t the purpose of the headsets they are a complete waste of money and time. If that isn’t their purpose please let me know what’s the point of the headphones Thank you.

19. Good Points! I’m not sure why they still get together. Could be habit?

20. Has NFL gone from 2015 bad to 2016 really bad! Obviously wrong officiating calls during Miami – Dallas and Arizona-San Diego games. Any kid could have made better calls without a slo mo video. What are you thinking? Why bother with officials?

21. I haven’t seen the games yet. Could you clue us in to which calls you are referring to? I’m sure you are aware this week the 8th official was used and most of the crews had ADP officials sprinkled in but not necessarilary at the ‘new position’.

22. I watched the Arizona/SD game last night and thought overall the crew did pretty good. They called a defensive offside on a play that should’ve been shutdown for unabated, but not a big deal. The OPI/pick call was tight, but I think that’s the way they are told to call it during the pre-season. The one possible controversial play was the hit over the middle that could’ve been helmet to helmet and while it looked bad on the TV tape, you really need to see the coach’s tape to confirm one way or the other, but it did look bad. Lastly on the pass play that was ruled catch/fumble which was later overturned to DBC, they followed the philosophy rule of when in doubt let replay fix it. By ruling catch fumble, they did just that. The 8th official looked fine and the ADP official looked good and overall fit in. So I thought they did good!

23. Who will be officiating the MSU vs. ND game this Saturday?

24. Keith: if you are asking which conference, then it depends on where the game is being played. At ND, I suspect the B10, if at MSU then I’d say ACC crew. Most of the time ND allows visiting teams to bring their officials to South Bend.

25. It’s at ND at it was the B1G officiating crew the last time these two teams played each other in South Bend as well. Thanks.

26. After being in Cleveland Stadium yesterday with John Hussey’s crew, I will go on record and say they are by far the worst crew I have ever seen. Smug, Arrogant, making phantom calls and not making proper calls. The Terrelle Pryor call at the end of the game looked like a conspiracy call. Enough said. There were many no calls, holding, hit on McCown when he was down, and a call on Coleman for personal foul when everything was started and ended by the defender. I know this is Hussey’s second game as a Referee, so I hope the NFL is watching him closely because he sucked yesterday. I know I am supposed to say underperformed…. but he Sucked.

27. I didn’t watch that or the Lions/TN game but Twitter has been blowing up since the Lions game yesterday saying that officiating crew was absolutely terrible for BOTH team and I guess one of the calls went against the Lions that cost them the game.

28. Keith: Hussey is a vet and so are the members of his crew, so there shouldn’t be issues. Maybe chalk it up to a ‘bad day’? It’s not like Hussey’s first year in the league, he should know what’s what.

29. It was bad throughout the game. It seemed like they enjoyed making bad calls. Hussey is a rookie Referee though, different than being a line judge.

30. Ron: True. Hey look #77 dodged the bullets last year in the Giant/Panther game and that was a horrible display of officiating.

31. Great talking with you. I live in Columbus and I see the Bengals got hosed too. Take care and looking forward to the rest of the season because being a Browns season ticket holder means I see it live. Television time outs when the officials are together laughing and talking about how great they are. It was almost Bottlegate again.

32. Al, not only are you the biggest whiner I’ve ever seen on this site, but now you’re the biggest hypocrite too. John Hussey’s crew has a bad game capped with a horrible nonexistent unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and you chalk it up to “a bad day”, yet Terry McAulay’s crew also has a bad game with all the Norman-OBJ nonsense last year and you crucify him for months on end. It can’t be both: either Hussey’s as bad as McAulay or McAulay just had a bad day too.

33. OK wade I agree, MCAULAY is horrible!

34. No Al, that’s not good enough. Since you can’t be convinced that McAulay’s crew had a bad day, then say that Hussey is horrible & then I’ll believe you.

35. Wade: BTW I prefer a sharp cheddar with my whine (Red)! If you want more details, here they are. As for Hussey, making the change from LJ to R isn’t going to effect his judgements calls, if they were good as a LJ then they should be good as an R. Plus he would not have been moved to R if someone in the NFL didn’t think he was a good official and a leader. If you ever officiate any sport you know many calls are subjective (especially holding and pass interference)and even though there is a criteria for each, its still up to the individuals interp. Now the one thing any official in any sport never wants to be accused of is losing control of the game. It was very apparent MCAULAY’s crew lost control of the game and HE as the crew chief had an opportunity to take control or regain control of the game and he didn’t step up. Regarding the incidents which occurred downfield he could’ve inserted himself into by suggesting to the calling official to DQ the player and add unsportsmanlike to the fouls. Then when OBJ launched himself and targeted Norman in the HEAD it happened directly in front of him, the Umpire saw it and flagged it and he just watched, another opportunity to take control. Then when his ‘boss’ reminded him it’s ok to DQ players and he will be supported was another opportunity, again he passed. What more does he need to step up and take control. I’d rather see a missed holding call or two then see the game get out of control. Let’s continue, least we forget ‘bottle gate’ where he made up his own rule and went to replay after the next play, NOT in the rules, he missed a illegal motion call in the SB which put the Broncos in a hole they were never able to get out of, he messed up the coin toss forgetting to give the captains their choice before giving the coin to Joe Willie, WRONG AGAIN, the last Referee who did something like this was Phil Luckett and he lost his white hat and became a BJ. Go back and watch the Referee from the Big 12 who worked the SC/ALa game take control and DQ a player when need be. Same Referee did an outstanding job at the Rose Bowl with the coin toss, he didn’t choke! Then recently reaming out one of his crew mates for missing a meaningless spot on a punt out of bounds in a meaningless preseason game is not very PROFESSIONAL. Should I continue…. I’ll end by saying IMO he is OVERRATED. I’d rather see Gino or Big Ed, or Vinovich, or …. on a game then HIM.

36. Ok Al, there’s a lot to dissect, so I’ll do it in steps.

    1.) The things you said about Hussey are correct. I’ll grant you them.

    2.) Nobody is arguing that things got out of hand; everyone knows that there should’ve been ejections. However, just because there weren’t means nothing. Some officials don’t like to eject players, which is something that should be applauded; keep them in the game at all costs. Also, blame the other deep officials for not stepping up as well. A crew fails together, you should know that

    3.) Regarding bottlegate, read this article that’ll change you’re perspectives (copy and paste the link if need be: https://www.footballzebras.com/2014/01/28/beyond-bottlegate-how-ugly-incident-didnt-define-mcaulay/

    4.) SB 48 coin toss was an honest mistake which can happen to anybody, the 1st penalty in that same game was the correct call, stuff a big 12 referee does is irrelevant to the discussion, there’s no evidence that the preseason game happened (though I’m sure other white hats have done similar).

    5.) It doesn’t matter what you think because the league has McAulay’s back & holds him in high regard along with the other refs you named. If you really can’t stand him, don’t watch the NFL until he retires.

37. “Some officials do not want to eject players”!!!! what section of the rulebook is that in? I must have missed it when I read it! Correct a crew lives and dies together, BUT as the CREW CHIEF he needed to step up. Honest mistake, by a veteran referee working the SB, nah, maybe by a rookie working his first HS game, not the SB, He CHOCKED. No way was the first penalty a correct call. Back moving forward at the snap is a dead ball, false start foul, has been for many years, unless MCCALUY has his own rulebook, HE CHOCKED. Watch the Eagles game and see for yourself, someone else reported that here and I just picked up on it, and yes other white hats have done similar BUT not at that level, maybe in Pop Warner, totally unprofessional. The reason I bring up the B12 referee is in comparison to how a situation should be handled, in a pressure situation he didn’t CHOKE! lastly you are right it doesn’t matter what I think, but I have a forum to express my opinion on the subject so I do. I try my best not to watch him because whenever I do I find too many cases of him making mistakes and it makes me sick. So I will take your advice on that point.

38. It was just a bloody coin toss Al. Watch it again; everybody laughed it off because they knew it was a mistake; nothing more, nothing less. The defense didn’t jump when the “back moving forward” moved forward. Ergo, no false start. I did watch the particular game & didn’t see the incident involving McAulay & Monroe, so maybe you’re right, but no one cares. Good on the B12 ref for stepping up; probably a scab from 2012, but still good on him. I notice that you didn’t touch upon bottlegate, so I guess the article changed your mind. I’ll end with this; either bash all the refs or bash none of them, because they’re all on the same level.

39. It was a false start, not calling it caused a safety! which now means the Bronco kick off and give up 9 points and never get out of the hole. That is a game impact call. The defense does not have to react to a false start, its automatic! Guess you failed the last rules quiz you took. Again, I can choose who to bash based on their being inept and He is INEPT and OVERRATED! BTW you can buy a rulebook online if you choose to! Have a great day

40. Believe whatever you want Al, I know what I know, which is that ALL NFL officials are great, no one is inept and/or overrated & it’s your fault if your jealousy of not making the big-time clouds your judgement.
    Please stop commenting here if all you’re going to do is whine about 1 official who you should look to as an inspiration & let the grownups have their forum back.

41. You obviously know NOTHING about officiating. All people do on this forum is complain about officials, so why should I stop. The only person inspired by MCCAULY is MCCAULY and if you don’t want to see it or admit it that’s your issue. You are right I am jealous of good officials like Big Ed, Dino and Vinovich and they do inspire me to be the best official I can whenever I go out on the field to work my game.

42. And yet you’re here with us & not in the NFL. Maybe if McAulay was your inspiration, you’d be a big-time official & we could all take you seriously. The other thing is that everyone else complains about ALL officials; no one is off limits. With you, that’s not the case. That’s why you should stop.

43. and how do you know I’m not in the NFL?? Just might be!

44. Yeah I seriously doubt that you’re in the NFL “Al” because why would a current NFL official devote so much energy into badmouthing a colleague on a website? Plus, if you are in the league, wouldn’t it make sense to reveal your identity to us? I could be wrong (and if I am, please do reveal yourself to us) but I doubt I am.

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46. Boger needs an all-star crew because he is an all-star screwup.

47. Your half assed attempt at refereeing games this year sucks. Yall should be fined for the horrible job you have done this year. You make even lifetime NFL fans want to quit watching the game, because week in week out yall screw teams over out of chances to win games. Ridiculous garbage calls and no calls this year!

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