Jim Quirk

Jim Quirk is an American football official in the National Football League (NFL) since the 1988 NFL season. Quirk originally started in the league as a line judge, but later moved to umpire for the start of the 1995 NFL season. He has officiated in one Super Bowl, Super Bowl XXXII and was an alternate in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Quirk is notable for his hustle between plays on the football field resulting in the length of games being shortened. On the field, he wears the uniform number 5. For the 2006 NFL season, Quirk is on the officiating crew headed by referee Jeff Triplette.

In college, Quirk was a guard and linebacker at the University of Delaware.

Outside of the NFL, Quirk was involved in securities trading for 35 years.

[edit] Memorable games

Quirk was involved in a landmark instant replay decision during a Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears 1989 regular season game known in NFL lore as "The Instant Replay Game". Green Bay quarterback Don Majkowski threw a 14-yard apparent touchdown pass to wide receiver Sterling Sharpe with 32 seconds left to put the Packers up 14-13. A line judge at the time, Quirk ruled that Majkowski's body had crossed the line of scrimmage, which under rules was an illegal forward pass, nullifying the touchdown. Replay official, Bill Parkinson, relying on the view supplied by a fixed camera on the roof of the stadium reviewed the play. After a four minutes and 54 seconds, Parkinson ruled the ball was still behind the line, overruling Quirk's call, and gave the Packers the score. The impact of this play resulted in the change of the illegal forward pass rule for the 1990 NFL season to include a passer's body being across the line, not only the ball, in determining an infraction and a limit of two minutes for instant replay reviews. It has been said this call was one of the factors that led to the resignation of Art McNally, who at the time was the league's Director of Officiating, after being unable to move forward after reviewing the play several times in his mind.

During a Chicago Bears and St. Louis Rams game in 1999, Quirk attempted to break up a fight between players by diving into the middle of the skirmish and tackling 275-pound St. Louis tight end Jeff Robinson to the ground.