Referee Gene Steratore's 45-Second NFL Call May Have Won the Entire Season

Sit back, kick up your feet, pour yourself a nice cordial and prepare for a long but pleasant call from NFL referee Gene Steratore.

Yahoo! Sports' Jay Busbee spotted one of the more captivating moments from Sunday's game between the Baltimore Ravens and Green Bay Packers.

And really, it's not surprising that a game that was 6-0 at the half featured a referee's call as the major highlight from the first two quarters. 

For those who haven't seen what a 45-second penalty call looks like, here you go:

First, check out the man's swagger as he starts to address the crowd with a humdinger of a tale. This man knows he is about to deliver a speech usually befitting the State of the Union, and he comes well-prepared. 

Now it's tough to really pay attention to exactly what is being said on the video. You tend to tune out for a spell like you would when an older relative is telling a story for the thousandth time. 

As best we can tell, Steratore is attempting to whittle down the entirety of NFL history into just a few short moments on Sunday afternoon. 

Actually, that might not be right. Upon second viewing, he is trying to explain how things sit with just 22 seconds to go in the first half. 

Randall Cobb injured his knee on a hard hit from the Ravens' Matt Elam. Because of the injury, officials took an automatic timeout, but the Packers did not have any of their own remaining.  

That's what Steratore points out at around the 20-second mark of this explanation. A personal foul call and a 25-second clock request later, and we have his dismount, which is quite a letdown. 

When you make a call that is more Oscar acceptance speech than anything, we demand you cartwheel off the field, or at least walk away with fireworks exploding in the background. 

Steratore proved himself to be quite the storyteller here. 

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