Clay Martin, promoted to referee in 2018, will work the Steelers-Bengals game on Thursday Night Football. It will be the first prime-time game for Martin and his crew this season, who have worked six games.
NFL Communications announced that Martin would referee the game in the Week 7 game capsule.
Martin’s crew has called offensive holding the most this season, with 17 flags flown. They’ve also called illegal formation 11 times, false start 10 times, and defensive holding eight times. In six games, the crew has thrown 84 flags totaling 608 yards. Of those 84 flags, 46 have been on the home team and 36 on the away team.
Martin’s crew also called offensive holding the most in 2024. They called it 63 times, per nflpenalties.com. It was far and away their most called penalty, with false starts coming in second place with 40 flags. Last year, 119 penalties went against the away team, while the home team was called for 96 penalties in games Martin refereed.
In Week 6, Martin and his crew worked the Seattle Seahawks’ win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, with Seattle pulling off a 20-12 win. Home teams are 4-2 in the games Martin has been the referee for this season.
Martin last worked a Steelers game in an AFC North battle between the Steelers and Baltimore Ravens in Week 11 last season, a game Pittsburgh won 18-16. Notably, Martin has worked a Steelers Thursday Night Football game in the past, as he was the referee for Pittsburgh’s 21-18 loss to the Bailey Zappe-led New England Patriots at Acrisure Stadium in 2013, a game that many Steelers fans likely want to forget.
The last time Martin worked a Bengals game was a 34-20 win over the Arizona Cardinals during the 2023 season. He worked the final regular-season game of 2022 at Paycor Stadium, his last time refereeing a game in Cincinnati. In that game, the Bengals won 24-17.
Martin broke into the league in 2015 as an umpire and was promoted to referee ahead of the 2018 season. The 50-year-old Martin also serves as a high school athletic director and played college basketball at Oklahoma Baptist University.
