The Super Bowl kicks off at 6:30 p.m. ET in Santa Clara, California, between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots.
Seattle is a 4.5-point favorite and is -230 on the Moneyline, while New England is +190 on DraftKings Sportsbook. The game total is set at 45.5 points.
This is a look at who the referees are for Super Bowl LX and how these officials could impact the game.
Super Bowl Referees
The head official for Super Bowl LX will be veteran referee Shawn Smith. He has been officiating in the league since 2015 and has been a head referee since 2018. Despite all of that experience, this is Smith’s first Super Bowl in charge and only his seventh postseason game. He only called one playoff game so far this season, when the Patriots hosted the Texans in the AFC Divisional Round.
Here is the rest of Smith’s crew for the Super Bowl, with their career Super Bowl appearances indicated:
Umpire: Roy Ellison (4)
Down judge: Dana McKenzie (2)
Line judge: Julian Mapp (1)
Field judge: Jason Ledet (1)
Side judge: Eugene Hall (4)
Back judge: Greg Steed (3)
It’s hard to judge how a referee will call a Super Bowl, as they have a different crew than they’ve worked with all season. Smith worked with the same group of officials all season, but now has an “All-Star” crew for the Super Bowl. Typically, Smith is very specific about which penalties he likes to call. When it comes to offensive holding and roughing the passer, Smith is very lax. Smith called the 3rd-fewest roughing the passer penalties of any official this season and the 2nd-fewest offensive holding penalties. He usually lets players get away with contact in the trenches and in the backfield.
Where Smith is typically much stricter is in the secondary. He called the 2nd-most accepted defensive pass interference penalties this season and the 2nd-most defensive holding penalties of any referee. This was not a one-season blip, as Smith led the league in defensive holding calls last year and was also second in defensive PI calls.
It will be interesting to see if Smith allows the game to shift on an unnecessary roughness penalty. In 2023, he led the NFL in unnecessary roughness calls, and he has called the 3rd-most each of the last two seasons. Smith was pretty hands-off in his first playoff game in New England, with only seven total accepted penalties in that game.
Shawn Smith Trends
Underdogs have thrived when Shawn Smith calls their games in the postseason. In his seven career playoff games as head referee, underdogs are 4-3 SU and 5-2 ATS. The over has also done well in those games, going 5-2 in his postseason career.
There could be a worrying trend for whoever leads this game at halftime. In the 123 games Smith officiated where it wasn’t a tie at halftime, the teams leading at the break ended up going 41-79-3 (34.2%) ATS in the second half. That is the lowest 2H ATS mark of any of the 54 head NFL referees since 2008. This trend could indicate that Smith falls for the trap that some officials do, by calling more penalties on the team winning the game. That is something to look out for in the second half, is Smith’s whistle starts to let the trailing team back into the game.
New England is 2-0 this season with Smith as the official, including its postseason win over Houston. The other game was their 33-15 domination of the Giants. Smith has not officiated a Seattle game this season. The last time he was the referee for a Seahawks game was when Seattle lost to the Giants in Week 6 of last season. Sam Darnold is personally 1-3 SU as a starter in games where Smith was the head official.
