Wayne Mackie remembered as beloved NFL official

It was a moment unlike any other in NFL history, and Wayne Mackie’s expression captured it perfectly.

On Sept. 27, 2012, three days after a three-month lockout of NFL officials ended, Mackie walked onto the field at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium along with the rest of referee Gene Steratore’s seven-member crew a few minutes before the Ravens’ Thursday night game against the Browns.

A lockout punctuated by several botched calls by replacement officials — including the infamous “Fail Mary,” in which one official signaled a touchdown and another an interception on the same game-ending play in a Packers-Seahawks Monday night game — finally had ended. The Ravens’ sellout crowd of 68,803 delivered a standing ovation, during which Mackie doffed his cap twice and smiled to the fans.

“The picture of him tipping his cap brings tears to my eyes, and that smile encapsulated what Wayne Mackie was truly about,” Steratore said. “I can’t ever remember him coming into a room and bringing anything other than that smile. There was never a team [of officials] I was with when Wayne Mackie didn’t smile in the first 15 seconds. That was Wayne.”

Steratore, now a television analyst for NFL and college basketball games, and the rest of the NFL community are mourning the loss of Mackie, who died on March 25 while attending officiating meetings in advance of the NFL’s annual spring meetings in Palm Beach, Florida. Mackie, who will be buried on Sunday after a private funeral in Queens, was 62 and lived in Freeport. He is survived by his wife, Tonya, and three daughters.

Mackie, an NFL head linesman from 2007-16, had served as the league’s vice president of officiating evaluation and development from 2017 until his passing. He managed the on-field officials’ weekly crew evaluation process as well as the staff of officiating supervisors and trainers.

Mackie officiated in eight NFL playoff games, including Super Bowl 50 and two conference championship games. A Brooklyn native who graduated from Colgate University, Mackie began his officiating career working college games before joining the NFL 15 years ago.

“We’d always look at each other in the moment before a game, and there was this surreal feeling of being in the NFL, sitting in those locker rooms before you’re ready to walk out onto a place like Lambeau Field,” Steratore said. “We’d look at each other, and you know we’re not at Colgate anymore. That’s what makes something like [Mackie’s] passing so difficult and so personal. This loss is reverberating, and not just around the NFL.”

Steratore will never forget the moments before that Ravens-Browns game.

“As we jokingly said in the locker room, ‘We’ve never been liked before the game,’ ” Steratore said. “ ‘Well, we’re going to be liked before this game.’ ”

It didn’t take long for things to get back to normal. An illegal-contact call against the Browns less than three minutes into the game brought a roar from the crowd. Three plays later, the boos returned after the Ravens were flagged for holding.

Mackie will be remembered for his warm smile, calm demeanor and relentlessly positive attitude.

“On those days when we didn’t bat a thousand, he would always turn it into a bat-a-thousand day,” said former NFL director of officiating Al Riveron, who knew Mackie from their days as college officials in the Big East. “Wayne was a teacher. He’d take a situation and turn it into a learning experience, good or bad. He was always about how we can turn this into a learning experience, take the information and pass this along to other individuals so they can get it. He had that gift to take information and transfer it to different kinds of people.”

Riveron recalls a devoted family man who always looked for the best in others.

“We lost a great family man, a great husband, father of three beautiful girls and one of the most caring individuals,” Riveron said. “Just listening to him coming down the hallway, you could feel his smile. That’s just the kind of positive vibe that Wayne brought to everybody. I lost a dear friend and confidant.”

The NFL has lost an invaluable contributor. And even if he wasn’t a household name, Mackie’s warm smile in appreciation of the fans who cheered him and his fellow officials a decade ago will never be forgotten.

This time, Bowles going to do it ‘my way’

In terms of his record, it was an inauspicious first act for Todd Bowles as a head coach. He was 24-40 with the Jets from 2015-18, with the team narrowly missing the playoffs his first year and going full rebuild in 2018. But there was enough for Bowles to take away that makes him confident that his second chance will turn out much better.

“When I first started in New York, you try to do things the right way, and you don’t do it your way, you end up having regret,” Bowles said in his introductory news conference after being named to succeed Bruce Arians, who stepped down Wednesday to join Tampa Bay’s front office. “So I’m going to do it my way.”

Unlike his tenure with the Jets, which was marked by instability at quarterback — he had Geno Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh McCown and then rookie Sam Darnold — he now inherits the greatest quarterback in NFL history in Tom Brady. His team also won the Super Bowl two seasons ago.

Bowles vows to take the lessons he learned with the Jets and turn his legacy around in Tampa.

“I think when you take a head job [the first time], you have to wear a lot of hats, but you had never experienced wearing those hats,” he said. “When you understand that going in . . . without the experience, I think you tend to do things a little differently. You have to be man enough to know when you can change things. Usually when people get fired, they blame everybody else. The first thing I did was look within myself, and there were a lot of things I can do better.”

Bowles will take the lessons learned from longtime mentor Arians, who coached Bowles as a player at Temple. Bowles coached for him in Arizona before Tampa.

“He teaches, he takes advice, he understands,” Bowles said of Arians. “That’s what you need to be a good leader. I’ll try to do that going forward.”

Impatience grows in New England

All things considered, any fan base would take the Patriots’ results the last two decades-plus in a heartbeat. But when you win six Super Bowl titles between 2001 and 2018, expectations tend to be greater than for teams with far less to cheer about. Thus the reason that the Patriots’ most important fan — who also happens to be the team’s owner — has grown increasingly impatient about recent results.

“I’m a Patriot fan, big time, first,” Robert Kraft told reporters at the NFL’s annual spring meetings in Florida. “More than anything, it bothers me that we haven’t been able to win a playoff game in the last three years. After my family, there’s nothing more important to me than the New England Patriots and winning football games . . . I’m not happy that we haven’t won a playoff game in three years. I think about that a lot.”

A shot at Bill Belichick? Maybe a mild one, but certainly not a win-or-else edict. Kraft understands he has the most accomplished coach in NFL history, and it’s difficult to imagine Kraft doing anything other than letting Belichick coach as long as he wants. But after seeing Brady win a title in his first year after leaving the Patriots and then watching his team get waxed by the Bills, 47-17, in last year’s wild-card round, Kraft is ready to see a return to championship form.

It may not happen for a while, though.

Yes, quarterback Mac Jones did a fine job in leading the Patriots to the postseason in his rookie season. But Buffalo remains the clear favorite in the AFC East, the Dolphins spent big in free agency and traded for Tyreek Hill, and there are plenty of roster issues in New England, starting with questions in the secondary, along the offensive line and at receiver. It also remains to be seen whether Jones will turn into more than a better-than-average game manager.

But Kraft expects improvement in the near term.

“I’d expect it to happen as soon as this year,” he said. “I think we’ve made the commitments as an organization. I think we have a lot of talent, some wonderful young men from last year and a couple in the weeds from before. It’s a chance for them to grow and hopefully come together, and the team comes together.”

Wishful thinking? We’ll soon find out.

Overtime rule change the right call

Based on the deliberative process in the NFL regarding rules changes, it appeared a change to the overtime format was not in the cards. Look no further than the competition committee itself, as a lack of consensus among the members gave the impression that it would be a hard sell to the owners when they met last week in Florida. Especially in a situation in which 24 of 32 teams needed to agree on any alteration for it to be made.

But momentum for a move to give each team at least one possession in overtime began to grow once the change was limited to the playoffs. And by the time a vote was taken, the measure comfortably passed.

It’s a sensible compromise, one that will go a long way toward creating an equitable situation at the most crucial time in the postseason. The numbers were simply too convincing to ignore: Since the NFL changed the overtime format in 2010 to give each team one possession in overtime unless the receiving team scores a touchdown on its first possession, 10 of 12 playoff games have been won by the team that wins the coin toss. Of the teams that won those games, seven scored touchdowns on their first possession. That included Kansas City in an AFC divisional-round win over the Bills in January.

It was a no-brainer to make the change. Offenses have simply gotten too good, especially with rules changes designed to increase scoring, and playoff games usually feature the best of the best at quarterback. Giving both teams a chance on the first possession makes sense, while still preserving the excitement of overtime.

By Bob Glauber

Special to NewsdayBobGlauber

Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”