NFL Notes: Detroit’s Jim Caldwell calls for improved use of technology in officiating after disputed call in loss to Dallas

Allie Sherman, the diminutive son of Russian immigrants who coached the New York Giants to NFL championship games in his first three seasons, has died. He was 91.

Sherman’s family said Monday that he died Saturday at his Manhattan home.

Sherman’s Giants lost to the Green Bay Packers in the 1961 and 1962 championship games and to the Chicago Bears in the 1963 title game. He was the NFL Coach of the Year in 1961 and 1962 and finished 57-51-4 in eight seasons with the Giants.

At 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, Sherman played quarterback at Brooklyn College and spent five seasons in the NFL as a backup with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Sherman served as the Giants’ backfield coach from 1949-52 and was 36-26-2 as the head coach of the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 1953-57.

He returned to the Giants as a scout in 1958, took over as offensive coach in 1959 when Vince Lombardi left for the Packers and became head coach when Jim Lee Howell retired after the 1960 season.

Sherman was born in Brooklyn in 1923.

He’s survived by wife Joan, son Randy, daughters Lori Sherman and Robin Klausner and two grandchildren.

Fire damages home of Panthers coach Rivera

Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera has more to worry about this week than his team’s upcoming NFC playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks after an overnight fire at his home left his family displaced on Monday.

The Rivera family’s 7,000-square-foot, two-story Charlotte home sustained “significant” damage from an early morning blaze that spewed heavy smoke and fire from the attic.

No one was injured in the two-alarm blaze, which took about an hour to extinguish.

Galette arrested in domestic violence case

New Orleans Saints linebacker Junior Galette was arrested Monday in a domestic violence case in which a woman says her face was scratched and her ear bloodied after an earring was ripped off.

Galette was booked with misdemeanor simple battery stemming from the disturbance at the player’s house in Kenner, a New Orleans suburb.

Prosecutors could later charge him.