Officials not afraid to use ejection in Week 9

Umpire Fred Bryan informs the Bengals' A.J. Green he is ejected after a Week 9 altercation.

NFL officials ejected five players in Week 9 for fighting. It should have been six. And the one who avoided the ejection ended up suspended. Ejection after several warnings It all started in the Bengals-Jaguars game. A.J. Green (pictured with umpire Fred Bryan above) and Jalen Ramsey had been going at it all

NFL got it right with three new referee hires

Allen, Torbert, and Wrolstad impress in first few weeks This is the first time since the early 1990s that the NFL assigned three new referees in one season.  Brad Allen, Ron Torbert and Craig Wrolstad are working their first season as a NFL white hat.  Earlier, I wrote about my

Wrolstad and Torbert new NFL referees

Two veterans replace the retired Green and Winter NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino confirmed to an Associated Press reporter yesterday that Ronald Torbert and Craig Wrolstad will be referees for the upcoming 2014 season.  Torbert and Wrolstad replace retired referees Scott Green and Ron Winter. Wrolstad has been a long time field judge on

Speculation whirls around new referee hires

NFL will hire from current roster Scott Green and Ron Winter have retired, opening up two slots at the referee position.  The NFL has not hired a referee straight out of college and into the NFL since the 1970 merger, so the two new white hats will come from the current

NFL getting their stripes in a row for 2014

League has several shoes to fill in the offseason The Super Bowl is fast fading into the rear view mirror and we now enter what is called the "dark period" in regard to NFL officiating.  According to the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the NFL Referees Association, there is

New white hats looking to earn an ‘R’

NFL trying out potential replacements for retiring head referees The NFL is preparing for the inevitable retirement of officiating crew chiefs by conducting trial runs for some promotions in the second preseason weekend. An officiating source said that at least one head referee will retire at the end of the season.

Preseason week 2 referee assignments

Referee tryouts, advanced training recruits on field Craig Wrolstad is one of four officials being evaluated at the referee position this week. Wrolstad worked in Super Bowl XLVII last February. All times Eastern. Thursday, Aug. 15 Chargers at Bears, 8 p.m. ESPN — Bill Vinovich Falcons at Ravens, 7:30 p.m. — Terry McAulay Lions at

Super Bowl officials on field for divisionals?

McAulay, Leavy likely for conference title games Boger, lacking prerequisites, still rumored as top referee This year, the speculation of the postseason assignments seems to be rampant, compared with previous years. For the past decade, regular season officiating crews stayed largely intact, qualifying as a group, with a few substitutions for higher

Bouncing fumble near sideline is tight call

Week 3: Redskins at Cowboys 1st quarter | 2:09 remaining | video. It was like threading a needle, but the Redskins very carefully recovered a Cowboys fumble near the sideline. Good collaborative call from line judge Adrian Hill (#29) and field judge Craig Wrolstad on the initial call. It wasn't until