NFL referee Adrian Hill suffered a non-contact injury to his left leg while officiating the Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans game on Thursday evening.
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, Hill “is believed to have avoided a major injury and his Achilles is intact.” Hill is reportedly expected to miss “some time” but could return later this season.
Texans staff members helped Hill off the field before he was carted away. Umpire Roy Ellison took over referee duties.
The injury occurred during the third quarter when Bills quarterback Josh Allen took a sack from Texans defensive end Danielle Hunter. Hill was behind the action in the end zone and jogging toward the play before he began limping. That’s when he received assistance from Texans officials before being helped off the field.
Hill worked as a college official from 2004-2009 before moving to the NFL as a line judge in 2010. He got promoted to head referee in 2019.
He works as a Space Department flight software engineer for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on a full-time basis.
“I work a lot on the software that monitors the health of the spacecraft,” Hill, who’s worked with NASA missions, told CBS Baltimore’s Rick Ritter in 2021. “When things were going well, things are very quiet, as soon as something goes wrong, you’re the first guy people go to.”
HIll was named Engineer of the Year by the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in 2006.
On the field, Hill has worked two NFC Wild Card playoff games in 2022 and 2023 and well over 100 matchups as a head referee overall.