The NFL has a star-studded matchup in primetime for the first Sunday Night Football game of 2025. In a rematch of last season’s AFC Divisional Round playoff game, the Buffalo Bills play host to the Baltimore Ravens to open the regular season. It’s a showdown that features the last two NFL MVPs in Lamar Jackson and reigning MVP Josh Allen. Recently, football fans have taken a keen interest in referee assignments for each game, thanks in large part to what many see as unfair rulings in prior seasons.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the head official assigned to Sunday’s game: John Hussey.
Drawing Hussey assigns Bills-Ravens with the lead official who called the fewest amount of penalties in 2024. Hussey (and his crew) called 184 accepted penalties in 2024. The Ravens weren’t assigned Hussey once during last year’s regular season. The Bills drew Hussey for their game against the Tennessee Titans, where 13 penalties were called. Hussey’s crew has been balanced when calling penalties, with home teams only having a six-penalty advantage.
As you can probably guess, the most common penalty Hussey called last season was offensive holding followed by false starts. Perhaps surprisingly, the next most-called penalty was defensive pass interference, which shows that the crew did let defensive backs get a little physical but they also drew a line in the sand.
With Jackson and Allen being mobile quarterbacks and drawing a lot of contact, perhaps we see some unnecessary roughness penalties. Hussey called 14 of those last season but only two roughing-the-passer penalties.
In a battle between two physical teams I would expect the officials to let the players decide the results on the field and try not to blow the whistle if they can help it. In other words: Treat Sunday night with playoff gloves, and avoid officiating drama at all costs.
