Super Bowl Officiating Crew

Yesterday we mentioned that Mike Carey will become the first african american to be the head official for a Super Bowl. Well... just like Mike, these guys were also rated #1 at their position based on merit and will join Carey for the big game. The rest of the Super Bowl officiating crew, with their regular season crew chief is in parenthesis:

Umpire: Tony Michalek (Parry)
Head linesman: Gary Slaughter (Leavy)
Line judge: Carl Johnson (Austin)
Field judge: Boris Cheek (Green)
Side judge: Larry Rose (Green)
Back judge: Scott Helverson (Hochuli)
Alternate referee: Walt Coleman (Coleman)
Alternate umpire: Dan Ferrell (Carey)
Alternate: Ed Camp (Austin)
Alternate: Carl Cheffers (Nemmers)
Alternate: Greg Steed (Triplette)

It was also mentioned that it's purely coincidence that Carey was the head referee for the Patriots and Giants week 17 game. Carey and crew were apparently chosen last week before the NFL knew who the two Super Bowl teams would be. In case you were wondering, during that game in week 17, there were 5 penalties accepted for 42 yards against the Patriots and there were 5 penalties accepted for 53 yards against the Giants.

In other related Super Bowl officiating news... our friendly reader Mile High did some research on the Super Bowl refs and found some interesting tidbits going all the way to the 1990 season:

-- Walt Anderson has been a white hat since 2003. He has done playoff games each of the last four seasons (2004-2007; can't get a playoff assignment in the first year).
-- Gerry Austin has been a white hat since 1990. The only years he has missed the playoffs were 1990, 1991 (couldn't do first two years?), 2004 and 2005
-- Mike Carey has been the most consistent. He has been a white hat since 1995. He's only missed the playoffs in 1995 and 1996 (again, needed three years' of experience?)
-- Bill Carrollo became a white hat in 1996. He's only missed 1996, 1997, 2005 and 2007. Interesting he has missed two of the past three and has four conference title games and a Super Bowl since 1999.
-- Walt Coleman has been a white hat since 1995. Has only missed 1995, 2002 and 2006 in the playoffs.
-- Ed Hochuli has been a white hat since 1992. He's only missed 1992 (obvious) and 2006 (don't know what's up with him missing last year, but that's pretty interesting)
-- Terry McAulay (I like how he works a game) has been a white hat since 2001. He's only missed 2001 and 2003. 2003 is very strange, actually. He went championship game (2002), missed (2003), divisional and super bowl (2004), championship game (2005), championship game (2006), championship game (2007)
-- Peter Morelli: White hat since 2003. Has only missed 2003.

Thanks MH! Keep the tips/suggestions/tidbits coming.

Playoff Ref Roundup

To recap the Playoffs, here were the Refs that called each game:

Wild Card Weekend:
Jacksonville @ Pittsburgh - Scott Green
Tennessee @ San Diego - Ed Hochuli
Washington @ Seattle - Walt Coleman
New York @ Tampa Bay - Walt Anderson

Divisional Playoff Weekend:
Seahawks @ Green Bay - Mike Carey
Jaguars @ Patriots - Jerome Boger
Chargers @ Colts - Gerald Austin
Giants @ Cowboys - Peter Morelli

Championship Game Weekend:
Chargers @ Patriots - Jeff Triplette
Giants @ Packers - Terry McAulay

Super Bowl
Giants vs. Patriots - Mike Carey

Mike Carey wins the award for Ref with the best merits. I'm not sure exactly what those merits are, but he is lucky one who was chosen. Interesting point made by commenter "Milehigh", last year's head official during the Super Bowl, Tony Corrente, was not even chosen for one playoff game. His 2007 crew was the exact same as his 2006 crew except they had a different side judge. Doug Toole was his side judge during 2006, where as in 2007 Corrente's sude judge was Dyrol Prioleau. It looks like 2007 was Prioleau's first year in the league. 6 other regular officials also did not work a playoff game. They are:

Bill Carollo - 18 yrs experience
Bill Leavy - 12 yrs experience
Larry Nemmers - 22 yrs experience
John Parry - 7 yrs experience
Gene Staratore - 4 yrs experience
Ron Winter - 12 yrs experience
and, of course...
Tony Corrente - 12 yrs experience

Ref Roundup

The four head officials in last weekends games were:

Seahawks @ Green Bay - Mike Carey

Jaguars @ Patriots - Jerome Boger

Chargers @ Colts - Gerald Austin

Giants @ Cowboys - Peter Morelli

The officiating crew that came away with the most critism was by far Gerry Austin's crew in Indianapolis. It appeared that those officials were the ones that were involved in some sort of conspiracy theory trying to help the Colts earn a bid to the AFC championship game. The other team that I heard fans of complaining about today were Cowboys fans, but as Chris Myers said on his radio show - The Cowboys lost that game themselves. Those fans have nothing to complain about except for the fact that their players flat out quit on them. The Chargers had to deal with a handful of calls they thought were unfair and they were on the road; however, they were able to fight back and win. Considering Dallas was hit with 11 pentalties, I can understand their frustration, but it was at home, and in the fourth quarter it appeared they gave up and threw in the towel. Many people are saying their offensive line let them down, and I think it's amazing how the leader of that unit - Tony Sparano - is such a highly preferred head coaching candidate.

There will always be blown calls and no calls, and other calls that shouldn't have been called and so on. I would have to say that Mike Carey and his crew did the best job considering the conditions they were forced to work with.

Here is the breakdown of pentalties for each game:

Team - Number of Pentalties and Yards, (resulted in first down)

Chargers - 10-79 (2)
Colts - 5-54 (4)

Jags - 5-42 (3)
Pats - 6-74 (1)

Giants - 3-25 (2)
Cowboys - 11-84 (3)

Seahawks - 4-28 (3)
Packers - 5-47 (1)

I'm still not quite sure why these four guys were chosen to officiate these games. We'll have to wait and see if there will be different refs for next week.

In case you were wondering, the officials for Wild Card weekend were:

Jacksonville @ Pittsburg - Scott Green
Tennessee @ San Diego - Ed Hochuli
Washington @ Seattle - Walt Coleman
New York @ Tampa Bay - Walt Anderson

There are 17 head officials, so far 8 of them have worked a playoff game. We will see if the next 2 will be the best of this group, or will it be the best from the rest. Personally - I think Ed Hochuli and Mike Carey are the two best.