Lance Easley, NFL replacement ref, lives with blown Packers-Seahawks touchdown call

“Follow the play,” Easley remembers thinking.

Wilson stopped and launched a deep pass, and Easley’s eyes tracked the ball.

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“I’m just going to watch it be some hope,” he says now, “some prayer that wouldn’t come through.”

A cluster of players had formed in the end zone, and when the ball approached, Easley began watching their hands.

“I’m hoping when I got on top of it that one of the players would rip it out,” he says.

Instead, Seattle wide receiver Golden Tate shoved Shields, the Green Bay cornerback, forward — Easley would receive a minus for missing offensive pass interference, which would’ve ended the game and given the win to the Packers. Despite that, Green Bay safety M.D. Jennings initially caught the ball, though Tate’s left hand somehow never lost contact. Easley hurried over, and remembering the rule that joint possession goes to the offense, he caught the eye of back judge Derrick Rhone-Dunn.

“In my mind,” Easley says, “I’m like, ‘We can’t talk about this, because the media is going to crucify us.’

“So my hands go up.”

‘It’s going to be ugly’

Back in Santa Maria, phones were ringing in homes throughout town. Dana Cusack called her husband, who worked with Easley on the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Hall, the fellow high school official, called a friend, and they laughed about what they had just witnessed on TV.

A while later, another phone rang. Corina Easley picked up and heard her husband’s voice. He asked if she had watched the game. She had it on television but hadn’t been paying attention.

“Well,” he told her, “it’s going to be ugly.”

The next morning, two unfamiliar cars were parked outside the Easleys’ home. They belonged to reporters, and they soon wouldn’t be alone. Corina drew the shades and locked the doors. An NFL security official called, saying that Corina should prepare herself for threats.

Friends stopped joking about what had happened on Monday, concern taking humor’s place. When an unexpected package arrived from Wisconsin, Corina hurried it outside and called police. They traced its origin and opened it carefully; inside were cheese curds and a note leaving little doubt Packers fans had sent the package: “The Cheeseheads will never forget.”

Their only child, 25-year-old Daniel, worried about his mother’s safety. “I have never experienced this type of fear,” Corina says.

Easley’s call and the national outcry forced the NFL’s hand, and it agreed to an eight-year contract with the permanent officials. Then the league moved on. The replacements had no such option.

Easley stopped in Fresno, Calif., for a banking conference on his way home from Seattle, and when he returned to Santa Maria, neither he nor his wife left the house for nearly a week. Everyone wanted to know how Easley could’ve gotten the call so wrong; how an ordinary man can redirect the season trajectory of America’s most popular sport.

When Easley returned to work, a security guard stood watch and didn’t leave for a month. Easley listened to his voice mail. He heard one man say that he hoped Easley’s family died, the next say that he wished for Easley’s death, and the next one . . .