The NFL’s soft opening, otherwise known as the Hall of Fame Game, is set to take place this Thursday, Aug. 3. It’ll be broadcast on NBC and Peacock at 8 p.m. ET and will pit the backups of the Cleveland Browns against the backups of the New York Jets.
You should not expect Aaron Rodgers to make his Jets debut in this one. Nor will Myles Garrett be a factor. This game is primarily a celebration of the Hall of Famers set for enshrinement, like Joe Thomas and Darrelle Revis (hence the matchup). It’s also a celebration of football’s imminent return.
On the field, this game represents a chance for (potentially) promising youngsters like Dorian Thompson-Robinson to get their sea legs and for fringe-roster guys to earn (or lose) roster spots. It’s also a chance for the officiating crews to exercise their flag-throwing arms and blow their whistles liberally. After all, even the fans don’t much care about a penalty in the preseason.
Get To Know the Hall of Fame Game Referees
The lead official in Thursday’s Hall of Fame Game, per footballzebras.com, is Adrian Hill. Hill boasts 14 years of experience and is something of a renaissance man. Out of his stripes, he is an aerospace software engineer. Think about that before critiquing his eye for detail.
The nine-man crew led by Hill boasts a combined 133 years of on-field experience.
His umpire, Roy Ellison, is a 21-year man who lettered in football at Savannah State University for four years. Ellison’s Monday-Friday gig is as a voice engineer for AT&T, and he’s officiated in two Super Bowls, per the National Football Foundation.
Information about Jim Mello, another 20-year official, is scarcer to come by. But the Boston Park amateur baseball league’s website details how Mello, a long-time slugger, hit a home run out of Fenway Park in the BPL before going on to officiate in a Super Bowl.
Line judge Mark Perlman is the longest-tenured of the crew at 23 years. Like seemingly everyone who winds up in such an interesting occupation, Perlman has an interesting backstory, one detailed in a near 15-year-old feature from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Perlman’s officiating career was abruptly cut short when he had a heart-related health scare. It shelved him for a season and he wound up getting a stent put into one of his heart valves.
But that was in 2002. Perlman returned to the gridiron in 2003 and hasn’t looked back. The former Vegas schoolteacher’s second officiating career alone went from Troy Polamalu’s rookie season to all the way past the legendary safety’s Hall of Fame induction.
I mentioned Polamalu specifically because Perlman was one of the official’s when Polamlu’s Pittsburgh Steelers took Super Bowl 40 over the Seattle Seahawks, and he spoke about that experience in the aforementioned interview.
“It was surreal,” he recalls. “Here I am, a schoolteacher from Vegas, on the field at the Super Bowl. You walk out for the coin toss, and you see all the All-Pros, and you get chills.”
Perlman stated that his jitters didn’t last too long, however, as a few verbal barbs from then-Seattle coach Mike Holmgren got him right back into his comfort zone.
“You’re so focused on doing your job, you forget that this is the Super Bowl, the biggest game of the year,” Perlman says. “Nothing changes because it’s the Super Bowl. You still have to get the calls right.”
Nothing changes because it’s the Super Bowl. And nothing changes because it’s the preseason, either, as Perlman and all of his brothers and sisters in stripes have all got to get the calls right.
