During the playoffs, the NFL employs a mixed crew of all-star referees; nevertheless, this season, crews led by Blakeman have called penalties lower than the league average. They committed 10.94 penalties per game on average during the 2023 regular season, as opposed to the NFL’s 11.36 average.

Football Zebras reported in their preview of the Conference Championship referee assignments that the referee is Clete Blakeman, who is in his 16th season and his 14th overall as a referee. Blakeman has been assigned to 14 postseason games, including the Super Bowl 50, five divisional playoffs, four conference titles, and four wild card playoffs. He was assigned to officiate the Super Bowl.

Even though Blakeman is an extremely experienced referee, his career as an official has also been marred by contentious calls. A quick Google search for “Blakeman controversy” will yield a plethora of articles covering the topic, some from as recently as six weeks ago and some from his early NFL years.

There are a ton of those articles, including Blakeman and the Lions as well. Even if some Lions supporters might not be aware of Blakeman specifically, the term “illegal hands to the face” is probably going to cause some controversy.

Indeed, during a “Monday Night Football” matchup between the Lions and the Green Bay Packers in 2019, Blakeman’s team was responsible for two (!) unlawful hands-to-the-face calls against the franchise. The Packers extended drives as a result of both calls, scoring 10 points and defeating Detroit 23–22.

The NFL would later acknowledge that the officials had committed errors.

Blakeman has been assigned to five Lions games since this one. Detroit has only won once this season, 26-14 against the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday night football in Week 8. The team has lost four of those games. It’s also important to note that Blakeman’s squad called more penalties on the winning club in each of those games.