U Garth DeFelice leaves field for regional supervisor post

Veteran's move leaves 11 vacancies for 2014 Football Zebras exclusive Football Zebras can report that umpire Garth DeFelice will leave the field and become one of the regional supervisors for the officiating office. The supervisors have traditionally been the graders that evaluate the game tapes for accuracy in the officials' calls. This

After Further Review: Bolts halt 2 games

Referee  John Parry awaits with an NFL official in the CenturyLink Field tunnel during a lightning delay in the first quarter of the 49ers-Seahawks game. Here are some of the items making news this week: Quick calls from Week 2 [Football Zebras] Parry really had no rule to evoke for a fan's whistle

Blakeman crew cool under chaos

Week 13: Lions at Saints Clete Blakeman's crew officiated a game that could have easily become uncontrollable at any moment. It didn't help that they were shorthanded. Umpire Garth DeFelice left the game midway through the first quarter with a foot injury. That required the crew to readjust their mechanics to officiate

Niners Smith pushes U DeFelice, ejected

Week 15: 49ers at Chargers Niners defensive tackle Justin Smith was ejected from the Thursday night 49ers-Chargers game for impermissible contact with an official (video). Umpire Garth DeFelice was attempting to break up some post-play shoving when Smith pushed DeFelice's arm off of him. Whether or not Smith knew it was an

Ravens coach fined $15K for ref bump

Week 2: Ravens at Bengals The league has zero tolerance for deliberate contact with the officials as Ravens coach John Harbaugh was fined $15,000 by the NFL. While fines are usually late-week business, the league levied this fine on Tuesday, underscoring the zero-tolerance nature of "impermissible verbal and physical contact with

Umpire position moved starting with Hall of Fame game

The NFL has ramped up its policy on avoiding concussions, and the policy has not excluded the referees. With high speed collisions involving the umpire position, the NFL has permanently moved the umpire to the offensive backfield, nine years after a pilot program of the switch was tried in the