NFL official Bill Leavy, who has been at the Seattle Seahawks facility the past few days working with the rest of his crew, addressed reporters here this afternoon to go over the new rule changes for the upcoming season.

Before we got started, Leavy made a surprising statement, admitting to getting two calls wrong during the Super Bowl in 2006, a 21-10 Seattle loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

One of those calls, of course, was the clipping penalty called on Matt Hasselbeck on making a tackle after throwing an interception. Sean Locklear’s holding call as the Seahawks were going …

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Referee: Jeff Triplette

Umpire: Jim Quirk

Head linesman: Steve Stelljes

Line judge: Mike Spanier

Field judge: Boris Cheek

Side judge: Dave Wyant

Back judge: Steve Freeman

Replay: Lloyd McPeters

First-year NFL referee Jerome Boger is the lead official assigned to the Seahawks-Bucs game Sunday, according to the official flip card found here. Boger has never worked a Seattle game. Boger was off last week. His crew has assessed 13.3 penalties per game (11.9 is league average). His instant-replay numbers are very much in line with league averages. And he is the only NFL official whose crews have assessed the same number of penalties against home and road teams. Not much controversial about his rulings, it appears.

Our ref stats make more sense when the names are tied to specific games. The chart at right presents the information that way.

Now we can see which coaches issued the most challenges against which referees, and the results. We can see which road teams had the most penalty problems. And we can see which referee had the weekend off.

We’ll be refining this stuff during the offseason, which is less than a week away for most teams.

The last 14 months have been unusually eventful for NFL umpire Garth DeFelice. He suffered a mild concussion during an October 2004 game, then worked the properly officiated Super Bowl after last season. He is back in the news after getting struck in the neck by a David Garrard pass Sunday.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled weekly officiating update. Week 16 featured a season-high 12 coach-initiated replay reversals. The previous high had been eight, set in Week 15. My records show 83 coach-initiated reversals this season. It’s pretty remarkable that we’ve had 24.1 percent of them in a two-week period.

Mike Holmgren got into the action with his reversal Sunday. Holmgren (2-2 in challenges) is one of 10 head coaches with a .500 or better winning percentage in challenges this season. The Jaguars’ Jack Del Rio lost one for the first time this season. He had been the only coach without a failed challenge in 2006. Del Rio still leads the league in replay winning percentage, which won’t do him much good if the Jags miss the playoffs. Ref-by-ref and coach-by-coach breakdowns are below.

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Ron Winter is the referee assigned to the Seahawks-Chargers game, according to the flip card posted here. The Seahawks are 2-2 in regular-season games and 1-0 in playoff games under coach Mike Holmgren when Winter serves as referee. Those regular-season games were played on the road (2005 at Rams, 2001 at Giants, 2000 at Falcons, 2000 at Dolphins). The home game was the divisional playoff matchup with the Redskins last season. Nothing unusual jumps out about those games from an officiating standpoint. Going back a few years, Winter’s crew presided over that Giants-49ers playoff game with the missed pass-interference call that hurt the Giants. This is a different crew.

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The NFL has levied a $5,000 fine against 49ers OL Tony Wragge. Officials flagged Wragge for a personal foul after he hit Seahawks CB Kelly Herndon after an 11-yard pass play to Antonio Bryant late in the third quarter. The penalty moved the 49ers back to their 13-yard line, but Alex Smith found Arnaz Battle for a 54-yard gain on the next play (Herndon made the tackle).

Penalties seem to even out over the course of a season. The instant-replay stats are another story. We’re noticing that some crews get challenged much more frequently than other crews. We’re noticing that some crews get overturned much more frequently than others. It could be that these crews make more mistakes, or that the referee is more honest about what he sees during a replay, or both, or neither. Walt Coleman’s crew has been challenged 22 times, compared to only 10 times for Tony Corrente’s crew. Full league-wide officiating breakout is below.

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