DETROIT - Shannon Eastin used her left hand to tuck her ponytail under her cap after the national anthem and got ready for work.
She seemed to do her job, which ended by helping to separate St. Louis Rams and Detroit Lions players after some shoving, pushing, and shouting broke out following the final play.
Eastin became the first woman to be an official in an NFL regular-season game, working as the line judge in the Rams-Lions matchup Sunday.
"It's a great milestone," Detroit coach Jim Schwartz said after his team beat St. Louis, 27-23. "But we didn't think about it all during the game."
That's probably just the way she - and the league - liked it.
Eastin is among the replacement officials hired by the league while the regular officials are locked out. Replacement officials are working games for the first time in 11 years.
She became the first female official to work an NFL preseason game last month as the line judge when Green Bay played at San Diego. The Pro Football Hall of Fame has the hat and whistle she used during that preseason game, and they are expected to be displayed in Canton, Ohio.
The 42-year-old resident of Tempe, Ariz., has worked as a referee in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference - college football's second-highest level - and has 16 years of officiating experience.
Timeout confusion. Replacement officials in the Arizona-Seattle game needed several minutes to determine whether the Seahawks had any timeouts left after calling one in the closing seconds.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll called a timeout with 30 seconds left, but the officials had announced three plays earlier that Seattle had used its last one when receiver Doug Baldwin was injured.
After huddling, then meeting with two people from the sideline, the officials determined the previous stoppage had been on an incomplete pass, so the Seahawks were not charged with a timeout.
