How can the refs call some of those penalties like the one that gave the bears a first down in the 4th quarter and get away with it. It could of cost the game, is there some type of review that the nfl could look at ?

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It's confusion. It happens. It was quite a bad call, though. It was an illegal formation, but since they missed it, it turned into a bad illegal contact play, as the receiver lined up 6 yards from Harris, instead of the 5 that he should've (Like Collinsworth said).

I would like to see something done about calls. There are some that are just to bad to let go. Somehow use the replay to make sure the correct call is made. No, coaches calling for penalty reviews, but the booth should be able to call down and say, hey, you go that one wrong, before the next play.

If the network can replay 5 times between snaps, so can the booth.

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I didn't really like that Spitz holding call at the end of the game on that long run by Grant either.

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Here is the rub IMO, where do you draw the line?

On a majority of the plays in this league, some type of infraction could be called.. holding being first and foremost.

Do you say, only review the called penalties? Then what about the missed calls? If you include the missed calls, then you are opening up Pandora's box...

Crews get reviews weekly by the head of NFL officiating.. probably with fines for excessive or horrendously blown calls..

But missed or bad calls are part of the game.. like it or not.

But pre-snap fouls to be missed.. that is sad.

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pack93 is right...refs are already reviewed for their performance.

The illegal contact was a HORRIBLE call, but Harris got away with P.I. on the interception that ended the game.

There are 60 minutes/game, and dropped passes, missed blocks, blown coverages etc. are all much more influential than 1 or 2 missed calls.

They're only human. Try reffing an 8 year old soccer game, listen to the parents and then come back and tell me how easy it'd be to ref an NFL game.

Week after week officials make phantom calls that sway the results of games. It just seems like too many of these calls are in such key situations.
Harris's phantom PI should have been a penalty on the Bears for illegal formation. But then it goes against us, and keeps the scoring drive alive.
Then what was the deal with the lengthy review? It was a meaningless score, except that it put us over the spread. Weird.
Every since the Superbowl where the Seahawks got ripped, the integrity of the game has been in question.

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It's not really PI because Al Harris had his eyes on the ball and the receiver didn't. So Harris should be entitled to fight to catch the ball.

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I agree with above - networks show replay after replay between plays, why cant the booth do the same and call down if there is a bad call?

OR

why not allow a coach to challenge penalty calls too? same number of challenges per game, and same cost of timeouts if they lose. let the team decide what is a game-changing call.

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It's stupid. We have all the technology to make sure that these kind of situations don't happen but they do. Hell, the Cowboys are getting "do-overs" this year for their stadium, why can't the NFL hire 4-5 people to sit in a replay booth during games and watch every play after it happened and examine where the ball should be placed. The refs should merely be the on-field assistants to the replay booths. The booth would have constant communication to the head ref and tell him where to spot the ball at the end of the play, where to mark the first down and more. The refs would call penalties, but each penalty would be reviewed before the ref actually makes the call. i.e., Packers score touchdown but offensive interference is called on the receiver. Instead of calling the penalty like normal and enacting it the booth would watch the play, determine if there was INDISPUTABLE (key word) evidence to overturn the call on the field and let the head ref know before the final call is made. I doubt it would delay the game as replays are available so quick now. And it's not like they have to take a super close look at it, just determine if it was a good call or not. If it was obviously bad, they'd overturn it but otherwise let it stay.

Sure you can call it opening up pandora's box but if it's done right you don't have to worry about it. Like I said the technology is in place to do this. In fact, in the future I could see them putting GPS devices on the tip of each ball and have a threshold mark at the first down marker. If the balls crosses the threshold, first down no questions asked because they'll know if the ball crossed the plane and when.

All in all I don't think it's really that hard to institute and regulate. The technology is in place now and I'm sure many of the people are willing. The problem is that there's so much else on the table for league officials and owners, they can't take the time to even introduce some kind of official change. It's not like it can be changed with a snap of the fingers, they'd have to focus solely on this subject for an entire offseason, which is why I don't see anything being done about the way penalties are called now. Simply because it's too much work right now to change.