National Football League

Meet a ref with NFL playing experience

Published Oct. 1, 2010 7:17 p.m. ET

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Who you should know

Steve Freeman came into the NFL as a back judge in 2001. He resides in Oxford, Miss. and works on Jeff Triplette’s crew. Triplette, by the way, also lives is Oxford, Miss. Steve is one of the rare breeds in NFL officiating because he played 13 years in the NFL. Few officials ever played in the league.

After attending Mississippi State, Freeman spent 12 seasons with the Buffalo Bills and one year with the Minnesota Vikings. He was a durable strong safety and had 135 consecutive starts with the Bills. Freeman had 23 career interceptions and three touchdowns. His best season was in 1980, when he picked off seven passes for 107 yards and a touchdown.

He is affectionately known by his peers as “Cowboy.” You seldom see him without his hat — even in the streets on New York City when he comes to work a Giants or a Jets game. Besides wearing the hat, he “starts” (trains) two- and three-year colts that have never been ridden before and trains them. He has always said that if you treat horses the way you want to be treated, you can start them and get them ready.

Outside of officiating and starting horses, Steve and two other guys build homes the old-fashioned way. Just three guys doing the whole thing from A to Z. It may take them a while, but they build them with the same precision that Steve also demonstrates on the field.

His son Brad is an up-and-coming official and is currently a field judge in the SEC. Brad played football his senior year at Mississippi State after being on a scholarship for baseball. He played for one year in NFL Europe before getting his start in officiating.

It won’t be long before there are two Freemans in the NFL.

What you should know

Technology directly affects NFL games especially in the area of communication between coaches, and between coaches and players. Some teams now have as many as 20 coaches, and some of the assistants sit in the press box during the games so that they can see the game clearer from high above the playing surface. They communicate through a series of headphones directly to the coaches on the sidelines and pass on information such as defense sets or they may assist in the play calling.

The other system that is vital to the game is the coach-to-player system that allows one coach to speak directly to the quarterback on offense or to one player on defense. This system was brought in when the play clock was reduced to 40 seconds. It was also used to counteract the noise at stadiums and eliminated the need for hand signals from the sideline, for the most part.

Both are good systems and are good for the game, but what happens when the systems fail?

In the case of the coaches’ headphones from the press box, there is a rule of equity. If one team has a malfunction of all of its headsets, the other team has to remove theirs. Therefore, neither team is able to communicate down to the field.

If one team has a partial malfunction but at least one of the headphones is working, the other team can use all of their headsets. Theory is that as long as one is working, you can pass it around in the coaching booth depending whether you are on offense, defense or special teams. This, by the way, is not a playing rule, and the officials are not responsible for this. The officials will inform the teams of an issue regarding communication and it is up to the teams to cooperate after that.

When it comes to to the coach-to-player system, there is no rule of equity. If one team’s system goes down, the other team can still use theirs. Basically, you are out of luck. You have to resort to hand signals from the sideline. That is why most teams bring backup systems.

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