Three referees will be working in other roles on Sunday, due to the ground stop

Posted by Admin November 15, 2026 NFL

The full scope of the adjustments to the usual officiating crews isn’t officially known. It’s clear, however, that Friday’s nationwide ground stop will result in significant changes to the usual groupings of officiating crews.

On Saturday morning, the NFL announced that three non-referees will serve as referees for four Week 10 games, with one of them — Don Willard — working as the referee for the 1:00 p.m. ET game between the Dolphins and Colts before traveling to Cincinnati for Sunday night’s Steelers-Bengals game.

Via Ben Austro of FootballZebras.com, three referees will be working in other roles on Sunday.

Referee Carl Cheffers and referee Alex Kemp will work as umpires. Referee Shawn Hochuli (pictured) will work as a back judge.

The reconfiguration resulted from the NFL’s decision to assign officials to games within driving distance of their homes.

Austro also notes that the replay officials for all Sunday games will work out of NFL headquarters. They were in Detroit on Friday for an all-day, in-person training session. Instead of fanning out to the various game locations, they all went to New York.

It sets the stage for a potentially strange day, with any mistakes inevitably being blamed on the inability of the NFL to get the officials where they needed to be. If it works, however, it could prompt the NFL to reconsider the overall staffing plan, if there’s a way to do it that reduces expenses.

I think that’s a tongue-in-cheek remark. I hope it’s a tongue-in-cheek remark.

Either way, Sunday could get interesting. The players and coaches have gotten to where they’re supposed to be. The officials haven’t, and the deck has been dramatically reshuffled in order to ensure that each game will be properly staffed.