Packers announcers, referee crew and other information you don’t care about, but like anyway

Aren’t us Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles fans lucky once again?

We get to listen to Joe Buck and Troy Aikman once again – not because many of us think that’s a great thing, but because it seems week-in and week-out the Packers game is worthy of the “top game” billing.

Fox announcers Troy Aikman and Joe Buck. Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports photograph

Yes, Buck and Aikman are the best tandem that FOX can give us, but I gotta admit, they are better than the team of Dick Stockton and Kirk Morrison, the duo signed up for the Redskins vs. Buccaneers epic tilt; or Andrew Catalon, Steve Tasker, Steve Beuerlein, the three amigos signed up to call the Texans at Browns game.

Here is the full list of announcers set for today’s games:

Denver @ St. Louis — Ian Eagle, Dan Fouts
Cincinnati @ New Orleans — Greg Gumbel, Trent Green
Minnesota @ Chicago — Kevin Harlan, Rich Gannon
Houston @ Cleveland — Andrew Catalon, Steve Tasker, Steve Beuerlein
San Francisco @ NY Giants — Kevin Burkhardt, John Lynch
Seattle @ Kansas City — Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, Tony Siragusa
Tampa Bay @ Washington — Dick Stockton, Kirk Morrison
Atlanta @ Carolina — Thom Brennaman, David Diehl
Oakland @ San Diego — Spero Dedes, Solomon Wilcots
Philadelphia @ Green Bay — Joe Buck, Troy Aikman
Detroit @ Arizona — Chris Myers, Ronde Barber

Referee for the day …

The Green Bay Packers vs. Philadelphia Eagles might be considered the “top game”  by FOX, but not necessarily by the NFL.

You might think that Ed Hochuli or Bill Leavy … heck, even Jeff Triplette … might be assigned to the game.

Nope.

Carl Cheffers

Carl Cheffers will be the head referee for today’s game.

Who?

Right.

As it turns out, this man has been around a while …

Here’s a bit about Cheffers per wikipedia:

"Carl Cheffers is an American football official in the National Football League (NFL) since the 2000 NFL season, who wears uniform number 51.Starting in 1980, he worked several high school playoff games, and two high school championship games. By 1995, Cheffers began officiating in the Pac-10 where he worked for five seasons before being hired by the NFL. During this time, he also worked in the Western Athletic Conference.Since entering the NFL, Cheffers has worked as a side judge, most recently on the crew headed by referee Larry Nemmers. Cheffers was promoted to referee (crew chief) beginning with the 2008 NFL season following the retirement of Nemmers and referee Gerald Austin.In his promotion to referee, NFL officiating director Mike Pereira said of Cheffers, “Carl has been extremely successful on the field as a side judge. He is very knowledgeable of the rules, a good rules guy. Strong presence. He was part of Larry Nemmers’ crew and he was clearly a crew leader. When we first saw Carl, we saw referee experience from him even though he had refereed basically at the small-college level.”Cheffers’ 2014 NFL officiating crew consists of umpire Undrey Wash, head linesman Kent Payne, line judge Jeff Seeman, field judge Brad Freeman, side judge Laird Hayes and back judge Todd Prukop."

However, you might remember this … not Cheffers at his best:

And then there is this …

Here is the complete list of referees for all of today’s games:

Sunday, Nov. 16

• Vikings at Bears — Ronald Torbert

• Texans at Browns — Ed Hochuli

• Seahawks at Chiefs — Bill Leavy

• Falcons at Panthers — Walt Anderson

• Bengals at Saints — Craig Wrolstad
• Eagles at Packers – Carl Cheffers

• Buccaneers at Washington — Bill Vinovich

• Broncos at Rams — Tony Corrente

• 49ers at Giants — Gene Steratore

• Raiders at Chargers — Jeff Triplette
• Lions at Cardinals — Jerome Boger

• Patriots at Colts NBC — Pete Morelli

Monday, Nov. 17

• Steelers at Titans ESPN — Brad Allen

  Other things that may be of interest today:

And one last thing … from none other than Donald Driver …