Alex Moore’s officiating crew will not be on NBC on Sunday night. The NFL has moved them off the Washington Commanders-Philadelphia Eagles prime-time slot and reassigned them to the regional CBS window between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins. Shawn Hochuli’s crew will take the national broadcast at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, where kick-off is set for 8:20pm local time.

The switch was first reported by officiating site Football Zebras late on 29 October and relayed by NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk the same evening. Officiating sources told the site the change is “more about optics rather than a disciplinary action,” with the move keeping the week’s officiating story away from Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth’s open.

The Detroit flags that triggered the move

Moore’s crew worked the 4:25pm ET window on 25 October, where the Detroit Lions beat the Green Bay Packers 20-17 on a last-second Jake Bates field goal. Two roughing-the-passer calls against Green Bay drew the loudest criticism, both on drives that helped Detroit.

The first came in the third quarter, when Packers linebacker Brenton Cox Jr. was flagged for minimal contact with Jared Goff’s torso as the quarterback fell. The second, with the game tied at 17-17 and 2:40 remaining, flagged defensive tackle Karl Brooks for hitting Goff at the moment of release. The 15-yard penalty moved the Lions from their own 45 to the Green Bay 40 and set up the winning kick.

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Fox’s lead analyst Tom Brady did not hide his view on the Brooks penalty during the live broadcast.

“My goodness, what is that?! That’s definitely not roughing the passer!”

Fox rules analyst and former NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino agreed on-air, calling the Brooks hit a “teach-tape tackle” and saying he did not see it as roughing.

A rare, visible consequence

Pulling a crew from a prime-time slot days before kick-off is not a formal sanction the NFL openly uses. Crews are usually graded quietly, with poor performances showing up only in year-end postseason assignments. Moving Moore’s crew from the week’s showcase game to a lower-profile regional broadcast is unusual enough that even Football Zebras framed it as an optics move. The secondary CBS window keeps the Detroit discussion away from the prime-time booth, where any mention of the roughing calls would be amplified to the league’s biggest Sunday audience.

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Brady had already criticised Moore’s crew during the Packers-Lions broadcast itself, calling one of the flags a “bang-bang play” that is “allowed 99 out of 100.”

The Commanders-Eagles game is an NFC East matchup, and Sunday night is the slot that draws one of the week’s largest TV audiences.

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