Our playoff predictions: Cheffers, Hochuli, and Smith rank high

The 2025 regular season has already reached its end and the postseason is upon us, which means it’s time for our 14th annual postseason predictions. Here are our guesses as to who will be the referees in the playoffs that start later this week.

You can see how we did in previous years, and feel free to make your own predictions in the comments section below.

Ben Austro

Arriving at the list of the On-field 12 is not the task of who’s in and out — a refrain my colleagues will repeat below. Everything I have seen this season has not given me any reason to bump someone off the field. In many cases, there have been exceptional moments that have elevated some, and I’m sure there were other exceptional moments in a regional game that I missed.

One who has been on an upward trajectory since donning the white hat is Shawn Smith. I found his performance last season worthy of a Super Bowl, and I see no reason to knock him off that perch.

I see Shawn Hochuli getting a repeat trip to the conference championship round. He had his first such game last year. (His father has family bragging rights with 9 Conference Championships and 2 Super Bowls. For now.)

I placed Bill Vinovich in the Wild Card round. I don’t see this as a demotion, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is assigned to a Packers-Bears matchup. As we discussed on the 1st & 25 podcast, sometimes a #2 vs. #7 Wild Card game is more challenging than the prestigious final three games of the postseason.

I was also impressed with Clete Blakeman, John Hussey, and Scott Novak are placed in my divisional playoff slots, but any one of them is capable of bumping up a level.

It should be interesting, and as officiating vice-president Ramon George showed last year, he’s not afraid to shake things up in the old order. He backs his selections with analytics and instincts, and is not bound by the commandments established when Super Bowls had not yet had an X for a Roman numeral.

One name not included is Adrian Hill. I excluded him due to his late-season injury. And it wouldn’t be because of the number of games he missed, but more the timing. I don’t know if that’s a factor or not, but this has happened in the past where qualified officials have sat out of the playoffs due to an unfortunately timed injury.

Mark Schultz

This prediction gets harder each year — especially so now that Ramon George waived the “5 years before a Super Bowl Assignment” unwritten rule.

For the Wild Card round I’ll go with Alan Eck getting his first playoff as a referee, Land Clark, Brad Rogers, Craig Wrolstad, Alex Kemp and Adrian Hill. While Hill was injured and missed a few weeks, I don’t think the NFL will hold that against him.

For the Divisional round I will predict Shawn Smith, John Hussey, Shawn Hochuli and Brad Allen. The Super Bowl officials usually come from this round so take note when these assignments come out. All of these officials have playoff experience and they will do well.

For the Conference Championship round, I will go with two veterans with many playoff games under their belt – Bill Vinovich and Ron Torbert. Both officials had good seasons and know how to run championship games.

For the Super Bowl, I predict Shawn Smith. He worked several high-profile games this season and has been (in my opinion) on the cusp of the Super Bowl for a few years. I think he breaks through this season.

Once again, many good and deserving officials will get left out of the playoff this season. More and more, a playoff game assignment at any level is a high honor.

Cam Filipe

I’ll reiterate the same thing I say every season: this is not a game of who didn’t make the cut. There always seems to be more worthy referees than there are postseason games. This exercise gets harder every season, but with 3 wins in the last 4 years, in the words of the late voice of the New England Patriots Gil Santos, “yes, it’s a dynasty”.

I’ll start at the top of the ladder this year. I have Shawn Hochuli working the 60th edition of the league championship this year in Santa Clara. As I’ve elaborated in past seasons, his rule acuity, game management, and overall presence is top-tier. After having had the honor of listening to him speak to my local high school officials’ association this year, I also learned how much he values the concept of the crew. I last predicted him to get the Super Bowl in 2022, but I think his stock is continuing to trend upward.

I’m thinking we’ll see two stalwart veterans in the Conference Championships this year: Carl Cheffers and Bill Vinovich. I got very lucky last year with my selection of Vinovich in the Wild Card Playoffs, but I think he and Cheffers will both return to the top-tier this season.

Pointing out some highlights in the earliest two rounds, I’m expecting to see Craig Wrolstad work a Divisional Playoff this year. He has worked in the Wild Card Playoff round in each of the last 4 seasons, and hasn’t worked a Divisional Playoff in 10 years, but I think he re-emerges past the first round this year. I’m also expecting to see Brad Rogers in the Wild Card Playoffs this year after only receiving an alternate assignment in 2024.

While I believe Alan Eck, in his 3rd year as referee, has shown some intrigue, I think he has to wait another year to get an on-field assignment. But then again, that’s why this exercise gets harder every season. Let’s have a great 2025 postseason and make sure none of these men become the story of any of the games.

Chris Seubert

This is my first time in this competition, so either I’ll have beginner’s luck or crash and burn! Since I don’t have the assignment analysis history that my three competitors do, I’m going to look at this from an assignor perspective where I think the NFL and Ramon George want to put their historically best officials on their most important games. I do not know how certain referees were graded beyond the higher profile “mistakes” that we believe happened this season. In the end, I went with the referees whom I consider to be the strongest and most consistent historical performers to work the later playoff rounds.

Obviously, Ron Torbert can’t officiate the Super Bowl again, but I think the league will slot him into the Divisional round as a reward for a solid season after he officiated the equally solid Super Bowl last year. Also, I’m not selecting Bill Vinovich, who is by far my favorite white hat since Jerry Markbreit, for the big game as he recently officiated Super Bowl LVIII, but he will receive a Divisional assignment because…he’s Bill Vinovich. My third Divisional referee is Shawn Hochuli, who is clearly considered a top-tier referee and worked a Conference Championship game last year, but is still being held from the Super Bowl for a year or two yet. Finally, I went with the best referee who has never worked a Super Bowl at that position in John Hussey, who is also my pick to work Super Bowl LX. While he worked Super Bowl XLV as a line judge and has been an alternate for two other Super Bowls, he has never been on the field as the referee. Hussey is one of the steadiest and most polished officials on the NFL bench, and I believe this year he will be rewarded for those traits.

I believe a pair of “younger” referees will officiate the Conference Championship games in Shawn Smith and Clay Martin. Smith is clearly on track for a Super Bowl soon, and I think Clay Martin is an under-the-radar referee who has quietly made himself into a solid, reliable top-tier white hat. As for the Wild Card round, I think the NFL continues to give playoff experience to some of their less “playoff seasoned” officials like Clark and Novak. I think Blakeman and Cheffers will officiate the most difficult games in this round, because their experience and game management will be needed.

Predictions

Cam won last year in a tight race that has given him 3 wins in the last 4 years. Ben leads the pack with 6 all-time wins (Ben and Mark have competed in all 14 predictions; Cam joined the competition in 2018; this is Chris’s first time participating).

2025 playoff predictions

Round	Ben	Mark	Cam	Chris
Super Bowl LX	Smith	Smith	Hochuli	Hussey
Conference Championships	Cheffers	Torbert	Cheffers	Martin
	Hochuli	Vinovich	Vinovich	Smith
Divisional Playoffs	Blakeman	Allen	Blakeman	Hochuli
	Hussey	Hochuli	Kemp	Torbert
	Novak	Hussey	Wrolstad	Vinovich
	(Smith)	(Smith)	(Hochuli)	(Hussey)
Wild Card Playoffs	Allen	Clark	Allen	Allen
	Kemp	Eck	Hussey	Blakeman
	Martin	Hill	Martin	Cheffers
	Rogers	Kemp	Rogers	Clark
	Torbert	Rogers	Smith	Kemp
	Vinovich	Wrolstad	Torbert	Novak
Scores	13	20	16	13

Super Bowl selections are shown in parentheses in the Divisional Round.

Scoring

We will score the predictions as follows: 5 points for a correctly slotted referee, 3 points for selections off by a round, 2 for two rounds, and 1 for three rounds (ties broken by the number of correctly slotted referees, then by scores in each round in descending order).