Super Bowl 60 Referees: Penalties, Trends, and Betting Impact

The referees are a part of the game. As long as human beings are on the field making the calls, it can’t be separated. There have been massive penalty calls that have affected Super Bowl and Super Bowl bets going back through the history of time. And, unless the NFL commits to some sort of advanced new system, that’s not going to change.

So it’s our job to look into the available data regarding this referee crew, the penalties, and trends to figure out if it can make any sort of betting impact. The Super Bowl is our last big chance to make money on NFL football games this year so we can’t leave any stone unturned. And, now that we know the crew, we can look into the info. Let’s do just that - here is the NFL officiating crew for Super Bowl 60:

Super Bowl LX Officiating Crew 

• Referee: Shawn Smith (1st SB)
• Umpire: Roy Ellison (4th SB)
• Down Judge: Dana McKenzie (2nd SB)
• Line Judge: Julian Mapp (1st SB)
• Field Judge: Jason Ledet (1st SB)
• Side Judge: Eugene Hall (4th SB)
• Back Judge: Greg Steed (3rd SB)
• Replay Official: Andrew Lamber

How Super Bowl Referees Are Selected

The NFL obviously wants top-tier refs for their most important games. So they have their own systems of analyzing and grading performances throughout the season and the years for every official who works the games. The crew is often built from the top of the ratings system to ensure that they are at the top of their game.

But the grades aren’t everything. Experience is also key - especially in big games. So the officials must meet the following resume criteria, depending on what their role will be.  

Super Bowl Referee

• 5 years of NFL experience
• 3 years as an NFL referee
• 1 postseason game as a referee in a previous season

Other Official Positions

• 5 years of NFL experience
• Postseason experience of either
  • 1 career conference championship game
  • 3 playoff-qualifying seasons in the previous 5 years

Historical Penalty Trends

To get a read on some basic historical information, I looked at the last five years of penalty trends. I pulled up the average per game during the regular season as well as the number called in the Super Bowl. Here are the results.

It seems that penalties in general have trended up lately (the 2025 season also saw 12.54 penalties per game). But that’s really not a clear correlation between “penalty-heavy” seasons and a penalty-heavy Super Bowl. There also wasn’t much to indicate that the game itself is called much differently than regular-season games, which is backed up by this study that covers the period prior to what I looked at.

As for the crew officiating this game, they were towards the lower end of the average for this year. Of the 17 different crews operating, Shawn Smith’s ranked 12th among refs in terms of penalties per game with 11.82 per game. That’s lower than the 12.54 average and more in line with the average over the last few years. 

This year, Shawn Smith’s crew called two Patriots games but no Seahawks games. They called the Houston @ New England divisional game (3 penalties on New England, 4 on Houston). And they also called the New York Giants @ New England game in Week 13 (3 penalties on New England, 4 on New York).   

In terms of the individual teams and the frequency of penalties called, there wasn’t much that stood out as egregious. The Seahawks led the league in illegal contact penalties, but those are generally not called often, and their total was six. The one impactful one would be that the Patriots were top five in defensive pass interference with 12 penalties called on the year. 

Officiating Impacts On Totals And Props

Both teams play relatively clean games in terms of false starts, offsides, and procedural penalties, so we don’t expect that to bog down the game. That does translate well towards betting the over. Also, the Patriots committing an above-average number of offensive pass interference penalties can translate into moving the football for big chunks, which can help move the ball.

Conversely, you do not get credit for those yards when those penalties are accepted. AS we’ve seen with players like Patrick Surtain for the Denver Broncos, that can actually hurt prop bet totals as the ball is advanced, but neither the quarterback nor the receiver gets the yardage. It is especially with monitoring New England Patriots cornerback Carlton Davis, as we’ll get into next.
 

Pass Interference and Holding Rates

As we mentioned, the only noteworthy standout would be pass interference for the Patriots. And they have one particularly egregious offender - cornerback Carlton Davis. Davis actually ranks third in the league of any player at any position this year in penalties behind only offensive lineman JC Latham from the Titans and offensive lineman Jermaine Eluemunor from the Giants. Davis committed pass interference 9 times, defensive holding 3 times, and had 1 facemask.

We expect Christian Gonzalez to lean towards the side Jaxon Smith-Njigba will be on. With Cooper Kupp in the slot, that means Davis should see a lot of Rasheed Shaheed. The penalties have hurt Davis’s graded but he’s only allowed 24.4 yards per game receiving this year on average, which is actually lower than the 28.4 allowed by Christian Gonzalez. And the longest reception allowed by Davis has only been 36 yards. So there’s a real chance that Davis could once again get handsy with Shaheed, leading to the under on some of his props.   

Common Ref-Related Overreactions

Overall, evaluating the referee crews themselves can often be overrated. The odds of someone like Carlton Davis committing a penalty are more related to his playstyle than they are to the actual referee crews. These notions that certain crews favor certain teams or that some teams generally get calls that others don’t are overblown - and that even applies to the Kansas City Chiefs, believe it or not. 

Shawn Smith and his referee crew have been chosen because they have done a great job this year. Unlike in years past, it’s not just tenure and experience that dictate who does the game. This crew meets the criteria based on their experience, which they have earned by grading out well. So there’s not a huge swing or advantage we can get from analyzing them. The players, on the other hand, could make a difference.