NFL Officiating...Why the Disparity?

There is a 74-penalty difference between the high and low NFL officiating crews.

There are 17 NFL officiating crews with eyes on the same players playing the same games in the same stadiums for the same 18 weeks every season.

But how is it that they see the games so differently?

Let me spotlight two crews, those of Carl Cheffers and Bill Vinovich.

Vinovich became an NFL referee in 2004 but suffered a health scare and did not return to full-time duty as a crew chief until 2013. Cheffers has been an NFL referee since 2008.

Cheffers has a high-penalty crew and Vinovich has a low-penalty crew. And the difference between the two is stark.

Since 2013, the Cheffers crew has finished first among the NFL’s 17 officiating crews in penalties twice – and leads again in 2021. It has finished second in penalties twice more and third once. This crew also finished seventh in penalties once and ninth twice. During the same nine-season stretch, the Vinovich crew never finished higher than 12th in the league in penalties. This crew has finished last in penalties twice and again ranks at the bottom in 2021.

The Vinovich crew has assessed 128 penalties for 1,076 yards this season. The Cheffers crew has assessed 202 penalties for 1,709 yards. How is it possible there could be a 74-penalty difference between the two crews? How is it that one crew can assess 600 more yards in penalties than another crew? That’s walking off six complete football fields.

When Cheffers has shown up in NFL stadiums this season, his crew has assessed an average of 14.4 penalties for 122.1 yards per game. When Vinovich has shown up, his crew has assessed an average of 9.8 penalties for 82.7 yards. Again, how and why the disparity? The average of the NFL’s 17 crews is 12.3 penalties for 106.6 yards per game.

Cheffers has assessed 106 penalties for 888 yards on the home teams alone this season. It bears repeating that Vinovich has assessed only 128 penalties for 1,076 yards on both teams in his games this season.

After finishing second in the NFL in penalties in 2020, Cheffers was rewarded with the coveted Super Bowl assignment as referee for the game between the Chiefs and the Buccaneers. Even with an “all-star” officiating crew, we got what we expected – penalty flags.

The Chiefs were assessed 11 penalties for 120 yards and there were a combined 15 penalties for 159 yards in the game. Kansas City was assessed a Super Bowl-record eight penalties for 95 yards in the first half alone, helping pave the way for an insurmountable 21-6 Tampa Bay lead.

On the flip side, Vinovich’s crew worked the 2018 NFC title game between the Rams and Saints when there was no penalty flag on a late and obvious pass interference that cost New Orleans a trip to the Super Bowl.

The Vinovich crew will let calls go. The Cheffers crew will not. It’s officiating to the extreme in both cases.

Cheffers has assessed at least 200 penalties in each of the last eight seasons, including 2021. No other crew has more than a current one-season streak of 200 penalties. The most penalties a Vinovich crew has ever assessed in a season was 188 in 2014 – and still finished 12th among the 17 crews in penalties that season. The Cheffers crew, by the way, led the way that year with 237 penalties.

These two crews are the aberrations in 2021. The Cheffers crew has assessed 13 more penalties than the next highest crew (Shawn Hochuli). The Vinovich crew has assessed 16 fewer penalties than the next lowest crew (Ron Torbert). That said, there’s still a 45-penalty and 369-yard disparity between the Hochuli and Torbert crews.

I’ve been tracking officials since 2002 and it remains a mystery to me why crews watching the same players on the same fields playing the same games on the same days can see them so differently. There needs to be greater consistency in calls but the NFL seems clueless about how to attain that. And that hurts the game.

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Rick Gosselin has covered the NFL for 49 years for United Press International, the Kansas City Star, and the Dallas Morning News. He has covered the Detroit Lions, New York Giants, Kansas City Chiefs, and Dallas Cowboys. He has been a Hall of Fame voter for 26 years and, in 2004, won the Bill Nunn Award for "long and distinguished reporting on professional football."

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