in 1983 in his typical no-nonsense fashion, in a late season game between the steelers and browns, dreith ejected jack lambert from the game for a late hit on brian sipe in what turned out to be sipe's final nfl game. dreith is also known among football fans for his unique explanation of a personal foul penalty during a game between the buffalo bills and the new york jets. after the jets' marty lyons (misidentified as mark gastineau during dreith's call) tackled bills quarterback jim kelly to the ground and started to repeatedly punch him in the head, dreith announced to the crowd: "there's a personal foul, on number 99 of the defense — after he tackled the quarterback, he's givin' him the business down there, that's a 15-yard penalty." dreith's call also involved an improvised hand signal of a repeated punching action. twenty-one years later, on november 24, 2007, during a game between university of maryland and north carolina state university, acc referee ron cherry called a personal foul, saying, "he was giving him the business." cherry did not use dreith's hand signal. david letterman stated he wanted the previous sentence to be a topic for know your current events.