The Bengals’ meeting with the Dolphins on Sunday will have Brad Rogers in the white hat, and his crew has been one of the lightest-touch groups in the league so far this season.
Through the first four weeks of 2026, NFL officiating has been flagging games at a record clip, but Rogers and his crew are sitting near the bottom of the league in penalties called. They’re averaging 12.5 per game, with only Ron Torbert at 11.5 and Alex Kemp at 12.0 averaging fewer.
Rogers is in his 10th year as an NFL official and his eighth season working as a head referee. His history with Cincinnati goes back a while, including the 2019 season opener in Seattle, which was also Zac Taylor’s first game as Bengals head coach. Cincinnati dropped that one 21-20.
The Bengals are 3-3 when Rogers is the referee. His last Bengals assignment came in Week 14 last season in Buffalo, where the Bills came away with a 39-34 win. Before that, his first game involving Cincinnati was the wild 37-36 victory in Atlanta in 2018, when he was working as a field judge.
Rogers’ penalty numbers have fluctuated in recent seasons. He averaged 13.3 last year, which ranked sixth most in the NFL. He was also sixth in 2024 at 13.8, and third in 2023 at 12.4.
The league has not given Rogers a postseason assignment in either of the last two seasons. His most recent playoff game came in the 2023 season, when he worked the AFC Wild-Card matchup between the Chiefs and Dolphins.
That was also the last time he officiated a Miami game. His only other postseason assignment came as a field judge for the AFC Wild-Card game between the Chargers and Patriots in the 2018 season.
In his most recent Bengals game, the penalty count was nearly even: Cincinnati had four penalties for 30 yards, while Buffalo was flagged six times for 68 yards.
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