Veteran referee Clete Blakeman will be on the whistle for the Saints’ Week 2 road game against the Baltimore Ravens, according to Football Zebras.
That assignment puts one of the league’s most experienced officials back in the spotlight after New Orleans’ season opener, where the officiating discussion centered on a rule that wiped out a defensive touchdown and helped push the game into overtime against the Detroit Lions. Former referees, rules analysts, and NFL officials all agreed the call was correct under the rule as written, but the rule itself drew the criticism.
The issue was that a ball traveling backwards could be treated as a forward pass, which has fueled plenty of head-shaking. Tear that page out of the rulebook.
Blakeman has been working NFL games for a long time. He spent two years as a field judge before earning a promotion to lead his own crew in 2010.
Since then, he has handled 16 Saints games, with New Orleans going 9-7 in those contests. Baltimore has also seen plenty of him, going 11-5 in 16 games with Blakeman as referee.
His crew tends to keep the yellow flags busy. Last season, they were one of the quickest groups in the league to reach for a penalty marker, calling 218 fouls in 17 games, which came out to 16.5 per week and ranked fifth-most.
They also finished with the seventh-most penalty yardage at 1,720, and they threw 20 more penalties on visiting teams than on home teams. As usual, the biggest offenders were offensive holding, false starts, and defensive pass interference.
The Saints have already seen this crew’s pace up close. Last week, Blakeman’s group tied Alan Eck’s crew, which handled Saints-Lions, for 14 penalties, the fourth-fewest in the league that week. New Orleans’ offensive line can’t afford many clean-up mistakes in Baltimore.
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The twist, of course, is how close the idea came to moving beyond rumor before Brees backed away because of wrist discomfort. Sean Payton was not initially informed about those conversations, which only adds another layer to a strange what-if for a Broncos team that briefly seemed to be chasing the impossible. For Saints fans, it is another reminder of how often Brees still sits at the center of football hypotheticals, even long after his retirement. [Read more 🡒]