Even as the NFL prepared to conclude its first regular-season week using replacement referees, with Monday night's New York Giants-Denver Broncos matchup, the dust from the opening weekend was beginning to settle and two things were clear.

The stand-in referees threw fewer flags and the games took less time to play.

In the 14 games played Sunday, the replacement officials flagged 160 total infractions (11.4 per game) and 138 of the fouls (an average of 9.9) were accepted. There were eight games in which fewer than 10 penalties were assessed, with two of the contests having only five infractions marked off.

The Seattle Seahawks were flagged just once in their victory over the Cleveland Browns and the Philadelphia Eagles only twice in an overtime loss to the St. Louis Rams. The most penalties, 22, were called in the Sunday night Miami-Tennessee game, with 21 of the fouls accepted.

The Titans had the most penalties called on them, 12, while Oakland had 10.

In the Sunday games, there was an average of 89.3 yards assessed in penalties.

"They did all right, but I thought they were somewhat tentative," said Rams cornerback Aeneas Williams. "There were times you could see that the speed of the game really was a problem for some of them. They definitely weren't prepared for that. I think, in a lot of cases, they held off throwing the flag because they weren't sure of some things or weren't in position to see them well enough."

	“	There were times where you knew they were just praying for the whole thing to be over. You'd look at them and the wheels in their heads would be turning like, 'Run, clock, run.' I can tell you, they missed a lot of the stuff in the middle of the line. ”
		— Bruce Smith on replacement referees

Indeed, compared to the first 14 games of last season, the replacements were in a bit of a flag daze, suffering from equal parts inertia and paralysis of analysis.

Last year, there was an average of 14.5 flags thrown in the first 14 games, 12.2 fouls per game stepped off and 101.0 penalty yards assessed. Only two of the games on the first Sunday of the 2000 season had fewer than 10 penalties assessed.

Comparing this past weekend to the first weekend of the 2000 campaign, replacements threw about 22 percent fewer flags and assessed about 20 percent fewer infractions and for 12 percent fewer yards.

"There were times," said Washington defensive end Bruce Smith, "where you knew they were just praying for the whole thing to be over. You'd look at them and the wheels in their heads would be turning like, 'Run, clock, run.' I can tell you, they missed a lot of the stuff in the middle of the line."

If there was a surprise in the performance of the replacement referees, it was they did call some of the penalties most detractors felt they might ignore. There were 19 offensive holding calls; 22 personal foul, unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct flags; a dozen defensive pass interference penalties: and 19 special teams fouls.

Still, some of the games went long stretches between flags and the referees consulted during the timeouts with league officials and supervisors seated in the press box areas. And given that the replacements didn't caucus as much on the field, the Sunday games were markedly faster than a year ago.

The average time of the Sunday contests was three hours and four minutes, compared to three hours and 10 minutes for the first 14 games a year ago. Five games on Sunday were played in less than three hours, and that included the Rams-Eagles overtime contest. The Oakland-Kansas City game, which featured several run-ins with the game officials, lasted three hours and 27 minutes, the longest of the day.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.