Pete Morelli, Walt Coleman to retire

Posted by Mike Florio on January 14, 2019, 8:56 PM EST
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A year after four NFL referees retired, two more will call it quits after lengthy careers officiating pro football games.

The league has announced that Pete Morelli and Walt Coleman will serve as co-referees for the Pro Bowl, adding that both will retire. Morelli has 22 years of service, and Coleman has 30.

Word of Coleman’s looming retirement previously had circulated. Morelli’s plans to retire weren’t already known.

The league will have to find a pair of new referees for 2019, at a minimum. Ed Hochuli, Terry McAulay, Jeff Triplette, and Gene Steratore retired after the 2017 season. That’s six new referees in two offseason, more than a third of the full staff of 17 referees.

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51 responses to “Pete Morelli, Walt Coleman to retire”

  8. Poor Walt should have retired after the NFL didn’t believe what air gauge he used to check the footballs.

  10. Walt Coleman, the guy who invented the “tuck rule”…never liked that guy since lol

  13. I always liked Walt Coleman. The games he worked were well officiated.

    Pete Morelli can go pound sand! It seemed like every time Morelli officiated a Vikings game the Vikes lost. It didn’t matter who the opponent was. The 2009 NFC Championship game might’ve been the worst officiated game ever.

  14. That was 50 years too late. Also, nice spot on that gallup catch in the Cowboys game other officials…1 full obvious yard short. Reviewed for a catch but don’t correct the wrong. The idiocy of the referees is just almost as bad as the fact that Linehan is still an offensive genius in the eyes of the red headed clapper. BTW, Rams, nice job kicking the butt of the defensive front 7’s butt up and down the field. Blew the Boys off the line by 2 yards every run. Just insane the dominance. Signed all self assessing Cowboys fans.

  20. Walt Coleman is one of Pro Footballs good old boys and a Dallas Cowboys fan, so they say.

  21. There are plenty of really good, non-geriatric officials in the college ranks. You know, that can still see and stuff.

  22. fan: “That DL looked at Brady wrong, why wasn’t roughing the passer called?”
    NFL: “You’re hired!”

  24. When you are blaming the refs your team didn’t deserve to win. The team already made too many mistakes during the game. Quit blaming other people.

  27. Morelli was the ref for the Cowboys/Lions playoff game, which featured the picked-up OPI flag on Dallas and Suh getting held on every play the Cowboys ran in the final 4 minutes…

  29. The NFL is making room for diversity. An African American woman and a transgender are going to be replacements.

  35. Whoever is saying Coleman was fine must not have watched his games this year. He absolutely gifted the Raiders their first win of the year with a ridiculous call that overturned a first down spot for the Browns that would have sealed up the game. Walt and his crew also botched two if not three other games I can recall from this season.

  36. artic19 says:
    January 14, 2019 at 9:09 pm
    The Saints would like to thank you for the 2009 NFC Championship game. Without you they were dead in the water.

    67 19 Rate This
    ——————————————

    Even these refs couldn’t fix Peterson’s 4 fumbles in a single game… The Anti-Al Bundy game.

  37. Good, can they take the rest of the flakes with them? Arena league or scabs could do a better job officiating than these posers.

  38. Walt Coleman should have a nice retirement fund from Bob Kraft. I’ve hated that guy since the “Just give it to ’em” game in 98. That was years before he invented the tuck rule. He’s as dirty as they come and I wish him the worst.

  39. If everything is relative, why do most fans seem to think all refs are terrible? Terrible compared to what? They’re guys trying to do a job. They’re human. They get it wrong sometimes.

    But despite being woefully underpaid, having to master a ridiculously complicated rule book, and having to sprint around a field with their head on a swivel trying to avoid inadvertent contact with 300 lb. men trying to destroy each other, they get it right most of the time. Let’s appreciate that for a minute.

    Great careers, Pete and Walt. Enjoy retirement.

  40. Sorry guys. Just because you are old doesn’t mean you are good. Coleman should have retired years ago. Critical bad calls, bad spots. penalties every 3 plays from that crew. they should all become espn consultants.

  43. NFL should have prepared for the aging out of current refs and hired replacements based on the condition that it was a full time job.

  46. I think the refs are finding that replay is stressful and not the “cure-all” it was once deemed to be. I’ve sat on my couch multiple Sundays looking at al play 10 times and having different opinions of what the ruling should be 50% of the time. The league should do more to emphasize the “indisputable evidence” standard for overturning calls made on the field. Too many times rulings are made in the booth or in NY which slows down games.

  50. That’s really good that they managed to keep officiating that long. The riggers of staying in shape and putting up with the aggravation of dealing with the snowflake players and coaches is to be commended. Enjoy your retirements.

  51. cscreject the logic of your comment (“When you are blaming the refs your team didn’t deserve to win. The team already made too many mistakes during the game.”) also means the winning team didn’t deserve to win, either, since they made enough mistakes to lose if calls had gone the other way. If you want to argue that the outcome of close games with controversial decisions is essentially random, a fair analysis of those games would show that’s not true: the overwhelming predominance of such games end up with the home team having more wins.

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