5 Super Bowl LVI officiating observations

The longest NFL season ever has come to an end with a compelling Super Bowl. Here are five officiating observations from another classic game. 1. Another nice coin toss https://streamable.com/hho2ii Over the years I've railed against the crush of media and hangers-on for the Super Bowl coin toss. Last year, the coin toss

NFL takes a hit after four referee retirements

Embed from Getty Images Every generation of NFL officiating gives way to the next. This past offseason, we saw, very quickly and dramatically, one generation give way to the next. Referees Ed Hochuli, Gene Steratore, Terry McAulay and Jeff Triplette represent 88-years of experience at the referee position. That is 88-years

Torbert crew fails to enforce forward-fumble rule

In the Week 11, Thursday Night Football game between the Steelers and Titans, referee Ron Torbert and his crew failed to enforce the fourth down fumble rule at the end of the first half. With under a minute to go, Antonio Brown caught a pass, was hit and fumbled the ball

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

Referee assignments for Divisional round: Blakeman, Cheffers, McAulay, Morelli

Updated Friday, Jan. 10 to include full crews Football Zebras has confirmed the officiating crews for the Divisional Playoffs. Officials are listed with their uniform number, years experience (including this season), the crew each official worked with in the regular season (by the referee's name), college, and outside occupation. All times are Eastern. Three

Who are the next white hats?

The NFL officiating staff is heavy on experience which is great news.  The flip side to this is that we will be seeing a higher than average number of officials retiring in the next one to three years. While there are many officials at all positions on the cusp of retirement,