Terry McAulay Credit: SNF on NBC
By Sam Neumann on

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Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner made the case this week that it’s time to retire NFL rules analysts, arguing the role has morphed from occasional clarification into an omnipresent crutch that exists primarily to validate officials and diffuse outrage. He’s got a point about the proliferation problem — what used to be reserved for genuinely complex calls now gets deployed for routine penalties that don’t need ex-refs weighing in.

Drew’s diagnosis is accurate. Rules analysts have become overbearing. Broadcasts spend too much time on officiating minutiae instead of game analysis. The role often exists to validate rather than clarify. But there’s a version of this position that actually works, and Terry McAulay proves it.

Start with credentials. McAulay spent 20 years as an NFL official, including 17 as a referee — one of only six refs to work three Super Bowls. He officiated seven conference championship games. Before joining the NFL, he worked the 1998 national championship game between Nebraska and Tennessee. The man knows officiating at the highest level because he did so for two decades.

More importantly, McAulay uses that expertise to hold officials accountable rather than carry water for them. Drew’s core complaint is that rules analysts exist to “diffuse outrage and deflect accountability,” pointing to the Walt Anderson-Mike Chase contradiction on that Bucs-Panthers pass interference call as evidence that even league officiating executives can’t get on the same page.

McAulay operates differently. Two weeks ago, on Sunday Night Football’s Ravens-Steelers finale, officials flagged Zay Flowers for an illegal blindside block on the opening play, wiping out 21 yards of a Derrick Henry run. McAulay didn’t hem and haw or suggest it was a tough call. He explained why it was wrong:

That kind of immediate, authoritative pushback is valuable precisely because most rules analysts won’t do it. Awful Announcing named McAulay the top rules analyst of 2025 specifically because he’s willing to call bad officiating bad officiating while others equivocate.

Drew’s right that broadcasts lean on rules analysts too heavily, treating every moderately close call like it requires expert testimony. But the solution isn’t to eliminate the position — it’s to use it correctly. McAulay on NBC and Prime Video doesn’t pop in after obvious roughing-the-passers calls to validate the refs’ calls. Sunday Night Football producer Fred Gaudelli hired McAulay specifically because he wanted someone fast enough to keep pace with the broadcast and confident enough to disagree with calls when warranted.

Drew argues we’d be better off with play-by-play announcers and former players handling rules explanations themselves. That raises a legitimate question about whether the role is necessary. But as Stu Holden articulated in response, even former pros need years of studying the rules and seeing different scenarios before they feel competent to explain them. The intricacies of what constitutes a catch, what replay officials are actually looking at during reviews, which penalties are reviewable and which aren’t — that’s institutional knowledge that takes decades to accumulate.

McAulay has it.

Mike Chase, Dean Blandino, and Gene Steratore might abuse the platform to run defense for officials. But when a crucial fourth quarter call in a playoff game goes to review, having someone who actually refereed three Super Bowls explaining what the replay official is examining and what standard of evidence applies beats having Cris Collinsworth guess at the rulebook.

The role is over-deployed, sure. But eliminating it entirely means losing the rare rules analyst who actually adds value when it matters.

Consider what NBC loses if they eliminate McAulay from Sunday Night Football. When a bang-bang play goes to replay in the fourth quarter of a tight game, Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth are left speculating about what New York is looking at, which camera angles matter, and whether there’s “indisputable visual evidence” to overturn. McAulay can walk viewers through the actual process because he’s been the referee in that position, because he knows what replay officials are trained to examine, and because he understands which elements of a play are reviewable under which circumstances.

That expertise matters most on the obscure rules that don’t come up every week. The difference between a blindside block and a legal block. When offensive pass interference is reviewable versus when it isn’t, what constitutes “going to the ground” in the catch process? These aren’t rules that former quarterbacks or linebackers necessarily know cold, even after years in the league. They’re the kind of technical details that officials spend entire careers mastering.

Drew’s larger point about broadcasts prioritizing officiating over game analysis deserves attention. Viewers tune in to watch football, not to hear extended debates about whether a receiver maintained possession through the ground. The obsession with getting every call right has turned officiating into its own subplot, sometimes overshadowing the actual competition. That’s a real problem, and networks bear responsibility for feeding that dynamic.

But that’s an argument for discipline in how rules analysts get used, not for eliminating the position. The best broadcasts use McAulay sparingly — on the genuinely complicated calls where his insight adds clarity, not on every holding penalty or obvious personal foul. When NBC deployed him correctly during that Ravens-Steelers game, he enhanced the viewing experience by quickly explaining why a controversial call was wrong, then got out of the way so Tirico and Collinsworth could get back to analyzing the game.

The real issue isn’t whether rules analysts should exist. It’s whether networks can resist the temptation to overuse them and whether they’re willing to hire analysts who’ll actually challenge officials rather than defend them. McAulay represents the ideal version of the role. Getting rid of it entirely because most networks employ the wrong people in the wrong way would be throwing out the one guy who does it right.

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About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann