[Bob M.]

REPLY: Mr. BP...the lineage you show among coaches is based upon having worked together probably with the more "veteran" serving as sort of a mentor to the newer guy. Those same things occur in the officiating ranks. However, with the turnover of officials in the NFL, it's necessary to reassign officials to new crews on a relatively frequent basis. So, you won't necessarily find an official spending his whole career on the same crew. Interestingly enough, when the NFL decided to promote Hochuli to the white hat spot, they gave him a crew that had four playoff officials (including two Super Bowl officials) from the prior year. He says they did that to help hiim out and keep him in line. And whereas a coach can pick his assistants whom he then can nurture into head coach material, that doesn't happen in the NFL. He will no doubt help them along, but he doesn't get to pick his crew. However, many of the current NFL officials come through NFL Europe where they do have the opportunity to work with current NFL guys and others who aspire to be in the NFL. So there is some familiarity with them when (if!) they make it to the big show. I'm sure that you could find some correlation between the caliber of officials and the referees/crews they been associated with. For example, Jim Tunney's and Jerry Markbreit's crews always made a good showing at playoff time.

On another plane, there is some history of familial lineage in the NFL officiating ranks: The Veteri's (father & son), the Bergman's (father and two sons), and some others, many still in the making.