What to Know About Detroit Lions Official Against Saints

The officiating crew for the Detroit Lions' 2026 regular season opener has been revealed.

Alan Eck will be the referee for Sunday's game, which will open the campaign for Dan Campbell's team. Eck has been an official since the 2016 season, and a head referee since the 2023 campaign.

Eck has been the head referee for three Lions games in his career, one in each of the past three seasons. The most recent one came in December of last season, which was at SoFi Stadium when the Lions traveled to take on the Los Angeles Rams.

The Lions lost that game, which was a shootout that ended in a 41-34 final in favor of the Rams. In that game, the Lions were whistled for two penalties while the Rams were called for four.

Detroit is 2-0 in its other games refereed by Eck, winning 23-20 over the Bears on Thanksgiving in 2024 and 34-20 over the Green Bay Packers on Thursday Night Football in 2023.

Referee for Saints at Lions — Alan Eck
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—  Fᴏᴏᴛʙᴀʟʟ Zᴇʙʀᴀs (@footballzebras) September 8, 2026

Eck has worked six Saints games as a head referee, with the Saints going 3-3 in those games. They were 1-1 in games officiated by Eck last season, defeating the New York Giants in October and losing to the Miami Dolphins in November.

In total last season, Eck's crew threw 183 penalty flags. There's a slight divide in penalties between the home and away teams, with the home team being whistled for 86 penalties while the away team was tagged for 97 penalties last season.

Eck's crew threw the third-least penalties amongst officiating crews that reffed at least 15 games last year, per NFL Penalties. His per game count was 10.76, which was the second-lowest ahead of only Brad Allen's crew.

The highest number of penalties thrown by Eck's crew last season came in the regular season opener, which was between the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football. In that game, Eck's crew threw 20 total penalty flags, with 12 coming on the Bears and eight on the Vikings.

By contrast, the game between the Lions and Rams featured the fewest penalty flags thrown by Eck's crew with six.

Via NFL Penalties, Eck's most common penalties called last season were false start (36 flags), offensive holding (34) and defensive pass interference (15).

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