Dean Blandino used an understanding of technology and the NFL’s philosophy of instant replay to rise from an intern with no officiating experience in the league’s officiating department to the main man as the NFL revamped its instant replay system. Blandino later became the NFL’s vice president of officiating and a television rules analyst.
By Jeffrey Stern
No Whistle, But a Major Replay Role
He’s never officiated a down of football in his life. Unless, that is, you count a bit of celebrity hokum played with a football on a beach in connection with a Pro Bowl a few years ago. But beyond that, Dean Blandino has never blown a whistle in a real game, ever.
Yet when it comes to instant replay — one of the most important facets of modern officiating at the pro and major college level — Blandino is not only a major figure, he is the man.
If you took the Dean Blandino story to a Hollywood producer, he’d laugh you out of his office. If you pitched it to a Broadway bigwig, he might say, “Been there, done that. It was called, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
Well, there are elements of Blandino’s career that compare favorably to those of J. Pierpont Finch, hero of How to Succeed. Like Finch, the 39-year-old Blandino started out at the bottom and wound up toward the top. But unlike the fictional Ponty, Blandino’s climb was the product of great effort, an ability to learn quickly and abilities that matched a need.
As Bill Carollo puts it, “He just happened to have the right analytical skills, the processing skills,” Carollo says. “He learned the old-fashioned way, with a lot of hard work.” Carollo, who has known Blandino for more than 20 years, thinks enough of Blandino that when Carollo became coordinator of football officials for the Midwest Football Officials Alliance, which supplies officials to the Big Ten, Mid-American and Missouri Valley conferences, one of Carollo’s first acts was to hire Blandino to work with his replay officials.
From Hofstra to the NFL
The guy who spends countless hours watching video aspired to be the one on video.
Blandino attended Hofstra University with an eye toward television work. “I wanted to get involved in sports,” he said. “I was very interested in television production and possibly being on camera.”
As a native New Yorker (he was born in Bellmore, a small town on the south shore of Long Island, approximately 27 miles east of Manhattan), it was only natural he began his job search in New York City. “When I graduated from college, I applied to the organizations in the area — Major League Baseball and the NFL — and the NFL called and had an internship in the officiating department in 1994.”
Not that Blandino had a special interest in officiating. “I never thought about officiating as a career,” he admits. “I played sports, but I never paid a lot of attention to the officials.”
Jerry Seeman was the senior director of officials at the time and took Blandino under his wing. Ironically, it was during the period when the NFL had dumped its instant replay system.
“We had him doing lots of different things,” Seeman recalls. “Writing booklets and guides and other things.”
Blandino started his internship gathering officiating-related statistics and serving as a video assistant. “I wasn’t grading games, but I was creating the video, cutting the tape for the evaluators to do the evaluations,” he recalls. “And from that experience of being around the guys when they were evaluating film picking up different things — what is pass interference, what is holding — to the point where I went from the point of cutting tape with them telling me what plays to put on the tape to actually deciding (which plays to use). Putting together a pass interference tape and saying, ‘Hey, these are the plays we want to show.’ It took four or five years before I was confident enough in my knowledge and the people around me were comfortable with my knowledge to do those sorts of things.”
The Replay System Comes Back
But in 1999, when the league decided to revamp the instant replay system and give it another try, Blandino was in his element. “Dean met with the different companies and compared the equipment,” Seeman says. “When we presented the plan to the Competition Committee, he helped put it together and explained a lot about it. Dean had done a lot of the legwork because he was very knowledgeable in that area.”
In 1999, Mike Pereira had become the vice president of officiating and was Blandino’s boss.
“Where Dean really showed his true value to me was in 1999, when we brought back replay,” Pereira says. “It was really Dean who understood technology and understood the philosophy of what the league was looking for in replay. I knew he was a smart guy, but I really saw his value when I saw him react to the needs and demands of instant replay. From 1999 on, it’s been his project.”
Earning Respect From Officials
His lack of onfield experience did not have a negative impact on how Blandino was perceived by onfield and replay officials. “He’s a well-liked guy,” Pereira says. “You’ve got veteran officials who’ve had 20 years in the league and they’re replay assistants now, and here’s this young guy who’s telling them what to do. But down the line, each guy has tremendous respect for Dean and listens to Dean and does what Dean tells them to do.”
For three seasons, Blandino was a replay official. Anyone who wonders how someone with no officiating experience was chosen to serve in such an important officiating capacity doesn’t understand Blandino’s uncanny grasp of the game.
“I’ve never seen anybody get so involved in officiating and understand officiating and the rules for a guy who never officiated a down in his life,” Pereira says. “It was amazing how a guy could really ‘get it’ without doing it. If he’d been asked to review film and evaluate officials, there’s no question he could have done it and done a better job than some of us that officiated before. He’s just that sharp.”
“He has a very analytical mind,” Seeman says. “That’s perfect for the replay booth. He understands both the technical part of replay and the operation of the whole system. He really found a niche.”
Building the Replay Casebook
Blandino was the right man in the right place at the right time. As a result, he helped shape how the revamped NFL instant replay system would work. “When replay came back in 1999, we were just feeling our way,” he recalls. “We didn’t have a real set of guidelines. We had the rulebook and the reviewable plays, but they were very broad. We had to interpret a lot of that. It took three or four years before as a group we felt comfortable. Then we started to work on a casebook that had specific plays. The casebook went from 30-35 plays to more than 170. It’s amazing how much it has grown.”
Blandino’s role expanded as time went on. He put together videos viewed by the NFL’s Competition Committee to determine league rules and policies and worked with league disciplinarian Gene Washington to determine if players should be fined for rough play.
Carollo is among those who appreciate Blandino’s abilities. “Through osmosis and being around officials and looking at lots of video, Dean has immersed himself in assisting the replay program as opposed to the officiating program,” the former NFL referee says. “We have a great relationship. From a distance I could see, here’s a young kid who knows nothing about officiating growing into the most prominent authority on replay today.”
Starting Under the Hood
In 2009, the NFL approached employees who had five or more years of tenure and presented an enhanced severance package. Seizing the opportunity, Blandino accepted the offer and resigned. “I saw it as my opportunity to leave the league and start my own company,” Blandino explained. He moved to Hermosa Beach, Calif., and Under the Hood, Inc. was born.
It was not much of a gamble, since he had already built a client base. “I left the NFL with the understanding that I would be retained as a consultant for the officiating department,” Blandino said. “I left in April 2009 and I started as a consultant in June 2009.”
Under the Hood had other prospects as well. “I had a lot of contacts with the college coordinators because several of them are NFL officials,” he says.
The move allowed Blandino to work out of his home. “I have a full set up where I do all of my evaluations and training tapes,” he said. “I download college video from the conference websites and the NFL sends me a hard drive each week with all of the games. I have a ton of storage space and keep two full seasons of NFL games online and two seasons of college replays online. I have voiceover hardware and software so I can create training tapes and then upload them to the various organizations officiating websites. I’m still doing replay with the NFL, just not as much of the day-to-day duties in the administrative office as I was before.”
If that weren’t already the best arrangement possible, it got better last fall when he and his wife, Katrina, welcomed their first child into the world. If Blandino wants to make home movies of his new son, Luca Charles, heaven knows he has the hardware to do so.
Shaping Replay Beyond the NFL
In addition to his work with the NFL, Blandino has helped the NCAA nail down its replay system. “While he’s not had a formal role, he’s helped shape some of the later rule changes in instant replay,” says Rogers Redding, secretary-editor of the NCAA Football Rules Committee. “We’ve made a fair number of changes with regard to what’s reviewable in particular. There’s an annual instant replay conference where replay officials from all over the country gather and he’s there. In fact, this year he was the lead presenter.”
Blandino has also been valuable in guiding collegiate replay officials to use their eyes and not their minds in making decisions. “One of the challenges that we’ve always had is that the instant replay officials tend to look at plays and get inside the head of the officials — re-officiate the play — rather than seeing where the video takes them,” Redding says.
Blandino said he has had discussions with Major League Baseball and with FIFA, standing at the ready if those organizations plan to expand or add elements of instant replay. If they do, those who’ve worked with Blandino will tell you he’s the man for the job.
“He’s just the kind of guy you want in your organization,” Redding says. “He’s smart. He presents himself well. He’s very well organized. He can produce material of a high quality on a moment’s notice. He’s got the skill set that one needs in what he’s doing.”
Ask Dean
Pereira puts it more succinctly. “If there was anything that had to be decided about instant replay, whether it was the technology or interpretation of the rules it was simple: Ask Dean,” Pereira said. “I let him make the decisions and he never let me down.”
Jeffrey Stern is Referee’s senior editor.
