Clete Blakeman is set to take center stage again in a Bengals game, and this one comes with a familiar backdrop. The veteran referee will work Cincinnati’s Week 10 matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday Night Football, marking his 18th Bengals game since becoming a head referee in 2010.
No active NFL referee has handled more Bengals games than Blakeman, and the history has been a mixed bag for Cincinnati. The Bengals are 8-9 in his games, but they’ve also dropped their last three with Blakeman on the whistle, and each of those losses left a mark.
The most recent came in Week 9 last season, when Cincinnati fell 47-42 to the Chicago Bears. Before that, Blakeman was on the crew for the Thursday night game in Baltimore in 2024, when Joe Burrow was hit in the head on a two-point conversion attempt with no penalty called.
That play would have won the game. Instead, the Ravens escaped with a 35-34 victory.
Blakeman was also the referee for the 2023 season opener in Cleveland, a 24-3 Bengals loss in which Cincinnati couldn’t solve the Browns or the rain.
There has been one bright spot in the mix: Blakeman worked Cincinnati’s 2021 Divisional Round playoff win over the Tennessee Titans.
Sunday’s game will be the fourth Bengals-Steelers matchup of Blakeman’s career, and his first since Cincinnati beat Pittsburgh 24-10 in Week 3 of the 2021 season.
This season, Blakeman’s crew has been one of the league’s more flag-heavy groups. They rank fifth with 15.75 accepted penalties per game, up from seventh last year at 12.82. The crew is tied for first with six roughing the passer penalties and also shares the league lead with 11 defensive holding calls.
That kind of pace has been a theme lately, too. Blakeman’s crew has had at least 16 accepted penalties in five of its last six games.
Blakeman’s résumé is a long one. He has landed postseason assignments in 12 of his 16 seasons as a referee, including Super 50 in 2015, the AFC Championship Game last year and the 2023 NFC Championship Game.
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