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Exploring NFL Officiating and Fan Perceptions with Dean Blandino
SportsGrid
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2/8/2025
Category
🥇
Sports
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00:00
Hello everyone it's Adam Kaplan here for Sports Grid with my man Dean Blanduno.
00:05
Dean Blanduno was a longtime NFL employee overseeing officiating and
00:10
Dean you're a man here because you're the perfect guy to talk about this. Let's
00:14
get started. So I don't know how to address this. Eagle fans are always
00:19
conspiracy theorists. Okay the Chiefs they get favoritism which I know for a
00:24
fact it's not true. We know about Mahomes and they supposed it flop, tried to flop.
00:29
The Will Anderson call. So let's move this along here. What's the real story
00:34
with the fans and their angst with the officiating with the Chiefs? Well I don't
00:39
think it's just Eagles fans. I think you hear a lot of this around the country. I
00:43
just think the Chiefs are really good and they're on this
00:47
historic run. The first three-peat potential and when a team is that good
00:51
you're gonna look for reasons to kind of tear them down. It happened with the
00:54
Patriots. Have they gotten the benefit of close calls? Sure. But every team that is
00:58
good there's a lot of factors that goes in. You're good. You got to have a little
01:02
bit of luck. You're gonna get the benefit of some calls from time to time. And
01:05
again it's it's not a conspiracy and but I think that is the narrative right now.
01:09
All right let's get to that Will Anderson call against when it was the
01:12
Texans and the Chiefs. I know the letter of the law is one thing like it the
01:16
refs have to call it in real time by what they see. What were your
01:20
thoughts on that call? I think from where the official was standing I was not
01:24
shocked that the flag was thrown. I think you've seen that all year when
01:28
the player comes in high you're gonna get that call more often than not. I
01:32
think you know then you look at the replay and maybe did he actually hit him
01:35
in the head it was questionable but when you come in high like that especially
01:39
with the protections that the quarterback gets in the pocket you're
01:42
gonna see that flag so I didn't have a problem with that with that hit in terms
01:47
of getting up getting the flag. So Dean fans are always complaining about
01:50
officials but me as a journalist I'd look at down the middle I think we're
01:54
actually really really good but nobody's perfect. Overall where's the state of
01:57
officiating from your sort of overview? Well I think it is kind of at a point
02:02
now where it's like we're using a lot of technology to help officials. Where do we
02:06
draw the line? I think you have to have the right balance because we can't
02:09
re-officiate every play upstairs. That's not gonna it's just not gonna be
02:13
good for the flow of the game. I do think the biggest issue the league has right
02:17
now with officiating is transparency. I really do. I feel like if the league
02:21
could give people a better perspective be more open about processes and how
02:26
things work and explaining calls I think that's it that would be a good
02:30
thing. We may we might not always agree but it rather than if there's something
02:33
controversial and not say anything or double down and say oh no it was correct
02:37
if you make a mistake admit it let's explain why and I think that would help
02:41
go a long way to dispel some of these conspiracy. So one of my favorite things
02:45
they've added is replay assist. To me it looks like it's really good. Your
02:48
thoughts on it so far? No I think it's been great. I think it's when it's
02:51
seamless and you can help the officials and you have objective information it's
02:56
really really good. Keep the game moving. Hey look if the official rules are to
02:59
catch and the ball's on the ground tell them it's incomplete let's keep the game
03:02
moving. I think that's a good a good add and we'll see we'll see they're gonna
03:06
look talk about adding some more things to replay assist going forward. So Dean
03:10
this game here that the the group of officials are gonna work at what are
03:13
your thoughts on those guys? I think it's a good a good group. You've got Ron
03:16
Torbert who's a veteran referee. The crew chief you always start there. You've got
03:20
it's a good mix of you've got a couple of officials that are working their
03:23
first Super Bowl and then some other officials that are working they're
03:26
either second or more. So I think it's a good group. They've they've been working
03:30
together in terms of the last couple of weeks preparing, watching film and I
03:35
think they're gonna have a great game on Sunday. Oh well Dean Blandino just told
03:38
you. You have it. Yeah we trust it. We trust him. We trust his ability to
03:43
and now give you great analysis on the state of officiating and believe me he's
03:47
I've known Dean for a while he is no biases. You just won't see a clean game.
03:52
For Dean Blandino, I'm Adam Kaplan.
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