“The back judge threw his flag for defensive pass interference,” Morelli told pool reporter Todd Archer of ESPNDallas.com. “We got information from another official from a different angle that thought the contact was minimal and didn’t warrant pass interference. He thought it was face guarding.”

Personally I think picking the flag up was the right call. No where in the rules do defenders have to be looking back and playing the ball. Something Aikman and Buck apparently need to learn. There was more offensive PI and a facemask on that play as well.

Originally Posted by: PackFanWithTwins 

From what I seen in the rules, it is legal to face guard as long as you do not make contact with the potential receiver. If no contact was made by the defender, then it is not a foul.

Up to this weekend, I thought face guarding was illegal.

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

At the beginning of the broadcast, Mike Pereira was talking about this not being a 'crew' of officials and rather a set of individual officials working together for the first time. Is this what happens when rather than the NFL allowing a crew that has worked all season together to stay together, it picks higher ranking individual officials and puts them together?

I don't understand this philosophy. I can't see how having high rated officials that haven't worked together can be better than the 'best crew' of officials that has worked all year long.

Originally Posted by: QCHuskerFan 

Mostly it is a bonus system for those officials that ranked out highest during the regular season. The officials version of Pro-Bowl. It shouldn't really matter if they have all worked together since it really falls down to one official. The Referee to gather the information and make the final ruling.

The screw up on this play was making the call to quickly before having all the information.

Originally Posted by: PackFanWithTwins