Dex, Mike Pereira, the former vice president of officiating for the NFL, said that the interpretation was correct although he would not have made the call. That is why it is a lousy rule. If 2 men who know the NFL rules can look at the same play and come to totally different conclusions, it is a bad rule.
This past week I was listening to the radio. I am not sure which station. It may have been the SCORE out of Chicago. They were talking about that play. It was mentioned that the NFL made this rule a point of emphasis for the year. And since it was the first game of the season the ref followed the rule. If it had happened in week 15 he would have fell back to the old line of personal interpretation.
That is one of the things I hate about NFL rules. They arbitrarily make rules a point of emphasis and then you get a lot of penalties called in the first half of the season and then it tapers off later in the same season and the next year everything is the way it was 2 seasons before. If it is a penalty call it. If not don't. They shouldn't bounce back and forth sometimes it is and sometimes it is not. No one knows for sure what the ref is going to do. Every crew enforces the rules to a different degree.