Whistle Watch: Scouting the Officials Assigned to NY Giants–Kansas City Chiefs Week 2 Game

The Giants-Chiefs game draws a middle-of-the-road flag happy officiating crew this week.

Referee Land Clark's crew will officiate the Giants-Chiefs Sunday Night game. | Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

The New York Giants’ Week 3 game against the Kansas City Chiefs will be officiated by referee Land Clark and his crew. 

Clark is in his sixth season as an NFL referee. He began his NFL officiating career as part of the league’s Officiating Development program after having served as a collegiate official in the  Pac-12 Conference as a referee, where his notable assignments included the 2013 BCS National Championship game and the 2015 Sugar Bowl. 

He was hired as a field judge by the NFL in 2018 and was promoted to referee for 2020 after the retirement of Walt Anderson.

His crew consists of umpire Mark Pellis, down judge Tom Stephan, line judge Jeff Hutcheon, field judge Jabir Walker, side judge Dominique Pender, back judge Brad Freeman, replay official Gerald Frye, and replay assistant Kris Raper. 

Pellis, Frye, and Raper are all new additions to Clark’s crew, Pellis coming from Scott Novak’s crew, Frye from Alex Kemp’s crew, and Raper coming from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Crew Scouting Report

In 2024, Clark’s crew, which did not draw a Giants game assignment, threw a total of 191 flags for 1,545 penalty yards. That was the fifth-lowest number of penalties thrown by a crew last season.

So far this season, Clark’s crew has thrown 24 penalty flags in two games, the eighth fewest in the league (out of 18 officiating crews).

Clark and his crew were last assigned to officiate Giants games on two assignments in 2023 (Week 2 at Arizona and Week 14 against Green Bay). In those two games, his crew tossed a combined 14 penalty flags for 122 yards.

The Giants are coming off their Week 2 overtime loss to the Dallas Cowboys, a game in which they were flagged a whopping 14 times (not counting those penalties that were declined), and the Cowboys were flagged 12 times in what so far is the most heavily penalized game played in this young season.

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