SaintsRule11

I just found out that John Parry will be the head referee in Saturday's game. The name didn't exactly jump out at me, much in the same way Tony Corrente's name didn't jump out at me last week. This is probably a good thing. If it had been someone incompetent like Ed Hochuli or Jeff Triplette, I would have been worried.

Incidentally, John Parry is loathed by 49er fans for calling a chop block penalty on Frank Gore which negated a Ted Ginn Jr. touchdown when the 49ers faced the Ravens on Thanksgiving earlier this season.

Here is a link to an article about John Parry on espn.com:

John Parry - NFL Nation Blog - ESPN

And here is a link to an article regarding the evaluation of refs in general (from 2008):

Rating refs touchy subject for NFL coaches - NFL - ESPN

As you can see, John Parry is rated as the best referee by only one head coach, but he is not rated as the worst by anyone.

Btw, everyone should be praying for Tony Corrente. In case you didn't know, he is currently battling throat cancer.

NFL referee Tony Corrente is fighting a brave battle with cancer | Shutdown Corner - Yahoo! Sports