Tag: Phil Luckett

The coin toss: What could go wrong?

by Mark Schultz - 3

It is a simple procedure. The game can't begin without it. Before any football game starts the referee has to decide who gets the ball first. For generations, that question has been decided by the coin toss. The procedure is the same from pee-wee games to the NFL.First of all,

Fail Mary was a failure beyond the field

by Ben Austro - 2

Commentary by Ben Austro The play was one in a million. You could work the triple shifts in peewee right up through three decades in the NFL and still not see a simultaneous catch call like this (video). The Packers-Seahawks meeting in 2012 was the end of the seventh full week of

Fail Mary replay official moved off SNF

by Ben Austro - 0

Football Zebras exclusive Referee Tony Corrente will have his entire crew on the field tonight, but in the replay booth, there was a last-minute substitution. Replay official Howard Slavin works with Corrente's crew this season, but the league pulled him to avoid a potential controversy with the Packers. While replacement officials worked

Microphone is ref’s friend for no-sense rules

by Ben Austro - 1

It elicits snickers from football fans when it happens, and it sometimes trends on Twitter. Referee Ed Hochuli turns on his microphone to explain a ruling, and some fans joke that it is NFL open mic night. An example from 2009: We reviewed whether the ball was fumbled down near the

Phil Luckett was right

by Mark Schultz - 0

Officiating boss said, 'What Phil did is correct' In the last 14 years, former NFL referee Phil Luckett was been mocked at best for the coin toss controversy on Thanksgiving Day in Detroit. In the 1998 Thanksgiving Day game, the Detroit Lions and Pittsburgh Steelers ended regulation in a tie, and