Eight-year veteran Clete Blakeman was tabbed by the NFL to flip the coin at the Super Bowl, to kick off the league’s 50th anniversary of the Big Game. Blakeman, you may recall, was the official whose coin didn’t actually flip when calling the toss between the Green Bay Packers and Arizona Cardinals in the Divisional Round of this season’s NFL playoffs.
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Blakeman was also the referee during that overtime coin flip debacle between the New York Jets and New England Patriots late in the regular season, when Patriots’ special teams captain Matthew Slater seemed highly confused as to where his team should be, and half of America thought Blakeman got the call wrong. (He did not.)
What happened in that #NEvsNYJ overtime coin-toss? #MatthewSlater mic'd up tonight at 9p ET/PT on @Showtime.https://t.co/w7VymN96wJ
— Inside the NFL (@insidetheNFL) December 29, 2015
The two biggest coin-toss stories of the year, and so it seems only fitting that Blakeman be the referee to toss the coin at this year’s Super Bowl.
Blakeman has become one of the more prominent NFL referees over the last two years. Sure, he hasn’t yet reached Hoculian status, but few in the history of the game have. And yet, it’s Blakeman—also an attorney by trade—whose name has come up more than any other official in NFL legal documents, thanks to last season’s Deflategate scandal. From Business Insider’s Scott Davis:
He also officiated the 2014 AFC championship game between the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts — aka the Deflategate game. Blakeman’s name was mentioned extensively in the Ted Wells report as the official who took the air pressure of the balls. Many people felt that Blakeman’s tests were inaccurate, as only four of the Colts’ balls were tested, compared to all of the Patriots’ balls.
Yes, a year after DeflateGate, that referee is working the Super Bowl. The NFL is really amazing.
It’s not that Blakeman doesn’t deserve the opportunity—based on both longevity and ability he does—but it’s amazing that news of Blakeman’s appointment came before the AFC title game, when New England still had a chance to make the Super Bowl!
Blakeman actually called two Patriots games this season, both the Jets game and an October game at Dallas. He officiated two games for Arizona—the NFC runner-up—this year as well, but no games involving Denver, and just one—in Week 2—with the Panthers.
In that Week 2 game, a Panthers win over the Texans, Blakeman’s crew threw 10 flags on each team, a total he reached or surpassed three times this season. And yet, a lot of flags isn’t Blakeman’s hallmark, as he and his crews threw just 11 in the Divisional playoff and didn’t throw more than 13 at any point in the last month, and that included a game with Buffalo, the most penalized team in the NFL this season.
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Per Pro Football Reference, Blakeman’s crew called 224 penalties this year, a near even split with 111 called against the home team and 113 on the visitors. The average, based on a cross-section of some of the more well-known referees, was 217 penalties—Gene Steratore’s crew had the lowest of those we looked at with 178, while Hoculi (no shock) had the highest at 251—works out to 13.5 per game. Blakeman’s crew averaged 14 per game, an absolutely insignificant difference from some of the game’s most highly-regarded officials. Across the entire league, per Pro Football Reference, Blakeman’s crew called .26 penalties more per game than the league average, just the second time in his career he was above the league average. Last season, Blakeman’s crew was nearly two penalties shy of the average. Perhaps DeflateGate woke some things up.
Blakeman is working the Super Bowl with just one member of his regular crew, Umpire Jeff Rice, with the other officials coming from a number of other crews. Football Zebras has the full list of officials, including Wayne Mackie, Rusty Baynes, Boris Cheek, Scott Edwards and Keith Ferguson stationed in various spots on the field. Tony Corrente is the alternate referee in case something was to happen to Blakeman.
Perhaps Corrente can be called in just for coin duties.
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So that’s who will be officiating Super Bowl 50, but none of that tells us anything about Clete Blakeman, the man.
If Peyton Manning starts yelling OMAHA as loud as he can during the game, Blakeman may get a little homesick. He is a registered attorney at law and a partner at Carlson Burnett in Omaha, Nebraska. Blakeman played college football at the University of Nebraska, playing quarterback for the Cornhuskers from 1984 through 1987.
In his career, Blakeman had just 79 attempts, completing 49 for a 57-percent rate, with seven touchdowns to four interceptions. He ran the ball 76 times for 282 yards and seven scores.
Blakeman was second on the depth chart in ’86 and ’87 to Steve Taylor, when Tom Osborne’s charges finished 5th and 6th in the national polls, respectively.
Nowadays, when he’s not on the field making news with his coin tosses or worrying about ball inflation, Blakeman is making more than a million bucks…for his clients.
With more than 20 years of experience, Clete has gained membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates for his commitment to integrity, honor and courtesy in the legal field. He is a standing member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum as a result of achieving verdicts, awards or settlements exceeding one million dollars ($1M) for his clients.
Blakeman was the alternate referee for the Super Bowl the last time the Broncos were in the Big Game, falling to the Seattle Seahawks two seasons ago. His father, Glen, was a long-time official in Nebraska and helped Clete get into the business. This, from Referee.com, which is a website for Referee Magazine that, yes, actually exists:
Clete became his father’s shoe-shiner. Upon his late-night return home, Glen would set his officiating shoes outside Clete’s door for him to clean and shine the next morning. It was a detail that Clete picked up on — keeping your shoes clean and in good shape was important to how you looked and came across on the field.
“Sometimes they would be all coated with mud and I’d have to bang them around in the tub to get them clean enough to polish. He never paid me though,” Blakeman laughed.
“Officiating was definitely part of our world together,” he continued. “He officiated during the fall and winter and he would drag me along to games each week. It was a big part of my life. It was cool to hang out with my dad and be part of the environment. I’d get to ride along with the guys in the car, and just enjoyed being there. I felt like part of the crew.”
That’s actually pretty sweet.
Turns out, Blakeman is a pretty sweet fella. By all accounts, no one has a bad word to say about Blakeman (outside of New England). He is married with two young kids and spends his time not at an NFL stadium lawyering and watching game film. His wife, Katie, seems to adore him. Again, from Referee Magazine:
“Fundamentally, he’s a happy person. It’s that simple. He’s a ‘glass-half-full’ guy. He treats everyone with respect and he makes those around him feel important. People want to be around him. If he has something bad happen in a game or at work, he doesn’t bring it home with him.”
And there we are. This year’s Super Bowl 50 referee seems to be a really great family man who looks at the world in an optimistic way despite thousands of people booing him before he goes home to his job as a personal injury attorney. Glass half-full indeed, Clete. Just make sure the coin flips this time.
