It’s been 14 years since the transformative moment ahead of the 2010 NFL season when Fox Sports brought in Mike Pereira as a regular on-air rules analyst for NFL and college football games. There had been discussions of officiating from the perspective of current and former officials before, including Pereira appearing on NFL Network’s Total Access for a regular “official review” segment while he was still the NFL’s VP of officiating, but the 2010 move was massive for providing live commentary from a former official on broadcasts before the replay review decision was even made.
Since that Pereira move (which got off to a great start in Week 1 that year with his correct prediction of the outcome of a Calvin Johnson catch/no-catch call), rules analysts have become almost a standard part of most high-profile football broadcasts. Whether the rules analysts are in the announcing booth (especially for primetime or exceptionally prominent games) or working from network studios, they’ve been critical to college football Saturdays, NFL Sundays, and other NFL primetime games (as well as in other sports at times).
But not every rules analyst hire has worked out over the years. And not every currently-employed football rules analyst is viewed the same way by fans. To figure out just how the current crop of football rules analysts are seen, though, we’re asking for reader votes.
As with our other polls (college football announcers, MLB announcers, NFL announcers and more), we’d like you to grade the current prominent football rules analysts individually from A to F (with A as the best and F as the worst), either using the form below or going to this link.
You can grade all of the analysts, or as few or as many as you’d like. Comments or explanations of grades for individual analysts are also welcome, but not mandatory. All votes and comments are anonymous, and email addresses are not collected.
The poll will be open through 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday, Dec. 17, with the rankings planned to be revealed here on Thursday, Dec. 19. Here’s that form, also available here:
Thanks for voting! Check Awful Announcing on Dec. 19, 2024 for the results.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.