Bill Vinovich was the referee for last year’s NFC Championship Game between the Panthers and the Cardinals, neither of whom will be in the game this year after failing to make it back to the playoffs.
Vinovich will be back, however. FootballZebras.com reports that Vinovich will be the official in charge in Atlanta when the Packers and Falcons square off for the NFC crown and that Terry McAulay will handle the proceedings for the Steelers and Patriots in New England.
Vinovich also worked Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, which makes this three years in a row that he has ranked as one of the top referees in the league. Both Vinovich and McAulay will be working with different crews than they worked with in the regular season as the league puts together “all-star” crews for the postseason.
The Super Bowl referee will be one of the four officials that worked in the divisional round. Carl Cheffers, Gene Steratore, Pete Morelli and Tony Corrente handled those duties.
