4 officiating observations from Super Bowl LV

We made it. No canceled games (although we did have Tuesday and Wednesday Football this year!).

While Super Bowl LV was far from a classic, competitive game, fans of the zebras can stayed engaged until the final gun.

Here are my officiating thoughts, written even before the vaccum sucked up all the confetti.

1. Sarah Thomas belonged

https://streamable.com/t87i7d

Sarah Thomas had a very good game. She had excellent mechanics, showed good presence, showed good judgement and did herself proud. I had another down judge penciled in for this game, but Thomas was strong and deserved to be out there.

She’s only 47, so I feel that we’ll see her for many more years and this might not be her last Super Bowl.

2. Too picky in the secondary

https://streamable.com/pbl5oh

I’ll leave the more pointed commentary to my colleague Cam, but I am sorry to say that there were too many marginal flags in the first half for defensive holding and defensive pass interference.

In the regular season, we were almost conditioned to see a flag fly for a defensive foul on a contested incomplete pass. The playoff crews seemed to let more go. But, in the Super Bowl, the flags came out again.

Nevertheless, even by regular season standards, there should have been more no-calls.

3. Proactive officiating

All the officials were active, but I specifically noticed umpire Fred Bryan and back judge Dino Paganelli working hard between downs to keep players separated and quelling potential trouble spots.

And, they weren’t afraid to flag those who stepped over the line whether it was early or late in the game.

https://streamable.com/sy3kb2

4. Officials and captains had room at the coin toss!

For years I’ve railed at the absurdity of having so many media members, celebrities and hangers-on attending the coin toss.

Photographers crush in and the referee, honorary coin tosser and the captains barely have room to function.

Perhaps the only positive thing about covid-19 this football season is that a socially distanced coin toss actually gave referee Carl Cheffers and the captains room to do their jobs!

https://streamable.com/ihs73y

This was the most unique football season I’ve ever witnessed. May we never experience another like it.

There will be more news this off-season as officials retire, the NFL hires new officials, the competition committee changes rules, and we even have some spring college football!

We will be here all off-season reporting on the officiating news.

But now, the confetti is swept up and we look forward to the 102nd NFL season this coming September.