The Pittsburgh Steelers will be hosting the Cincinnati Bengals at Acrisure Stadium in Week 16 for another Saturday football game. Craig Wrolstad and his crew will be the officials for the game, per footballzebras.com.
Wrolstad started his career as an NFL official as a field judge in 2003 and served in that role for 11 seasons until 2014, when he became a referee. He was a field judge during the Baltimore Ravens-San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl for the 2012 season. Since becoming a referee, he has been assigned to four total playoff games in ten seasons. He has the third most experience of all the league’s referees.
He was the referee for the Steelers’ game against the Los Angeles Rams in Week Seven. His crew called 17 total penalties in that game, including eleven on the Steelers for 76 yards. Two of the penalties on the Steelers were declined and one was offsetting. A little bit of everything was called in that game. There were five offensive holding calls, two intentional grounding calls, two taunting calls, and a grab-bag of eight other infractions. One thing he didn’t call in that game was a special teams penalty. That might bode well for the Steelers, as they have among the most special teams penalties in the league.
Wrolstad has refereed 13 games this season. Over that span, there have been 139 accepted penalties called by his crew, per nflpenalties.com. There have also been another 27 declined and 14 offsetting penalties. At 180 total penalties called, that makes 13.9 penalties called per game. His crew throws the sixth-fewest penalty flags of all 17 crews.
He is tough on offensive linemen and has called 26 offensive holding penalties and 24 false start penalties this season. Interestingly, he calls nearly double the offensive holding calls on the home team as he does on the away team. Overall, he is fairly balanced, with 52.52 percent of his penalties being called on the home team. With Wrolstad as the referee this season, the home team has come away with the win 53.85 percent of the time.
His toughness on offensive holding and false starts will be music to T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith’s ears. Watt has publicly complained about a lack of holding calls. Perhaps he will draw one or two in this game.
