They Picked Up the Flag!

[JoeZagorski]

After watching the last few minutes of today's Detroit-Dallas playoff game, I can honestly state that the "professional" referees in the National Football League are the absolute worst in any sport known to man. They picked up the flag after an obvious pass interference penalty! Looks like we need instant replay to determine penalties too. Oh, but they are all comprised from different crews in the playoffs! That is a cop-out. The rules are the rules. They should know them by now. I suspect that Detroit will get an apology letter from the Commissioner tomorrow, stating "We're sorry. The referee made the wrong call in the heat of the action, blah, blah, blah." There was absolutely no reason for them to pick up the flag. Plays like that give credence to those people who claim that the game is fixed. I'm not one of them, but I hear them all the time.

[John Grasso]

Would the fact that these officiating crews do not work together during the season
be a factor? If so, wouldn't it make more sense to reward the best officiating crews with
playoff work rather than splitting them up?

[rhickok1109]

It's certainly very bothersome that one official thought it was face guarding, which is against the NCAA rules but not the NFL rules, although it used to be.

[conace21]

It's certainly very bothersome that one official thought it was face guarding, which is against the NCAA rules but not the NFL rules, although it used to be.

I don't blame the mixed- crew factor for the non-call. I do blame that for the poor communication where they picked up the flag AFTER announcing the penalty. I've never seen that before. The call itself could have gone either way. From one angle, it looked like obvious PI. From another angle, it showed there was much less contact. I've seen calls on less contact, but I've also seen non-calls with more.

[Ronfitch]

Would the fact that these officiating crews do not work together during the season
be a factor? If so, wouldn't it make more sense to reward the best officiating crews with
playoff work rather than splitting them up?

As if scripted for a made-for-tv movie, the former referee who works for Fox (Mike Pereira) talked about how the officials were from different crews in the pre-game show and suggested that it may factor into the game (or something similar ... he wasn't just pointing it out, but actually called attention to it as if something to watch). I don't recall a pre-game comment by anyone in the booth before of that nature.

[Byron]

Well, the NFL has said that the call could have gone either way, so no issue with picking up the flag. The mechanics of how it was handled (make the call and then reverse it) seem to be the real issue.

They've also pointed out numerous missed calls on both Dallas and Detroit throughout the game. The players still have to play; the real shame of that game was watching Detroit just implode in the last half of the fourth quarter after playing so well at the beginning of the game.

[luckyshow]

Teams have not scored or done much in the second half of big games and still won. Detroit would have scored if the penalty had been enforced or the other non call for the guy arguing with the ref (they had started to move again) which would have been called on the Jets if they'd been playing. They would possibly have been up two scores

[Terry Baldshaw]

Why doesn't someone just ask: Picking up the flag, not calling a penalty ... would this have happened had the teams been in reverse?

Eviscerate me if you'd like but I'm just writing what many of you are thinking.

[Tom Landry]

And if Steve Bartman might have not "interfered" with Moses Alou the Cubs would have made it to the Worlds Series.

As Don Meredith once said 'ifs' and 'buts' were candy and nuts, wouldn't it be a merry Christmas?

[oldecapecod11]

... and a flash bulb went off in Irving Fryar's eyes. tsk! tsk!