Were the Seattle/Green Bay replacement refs working tonight

They picked it up because they said the ball was uncatchable. It's pretty hard to catch a ball though with a defender trying to hump you to prevent you from coming back to the ball.
 
Yeah, by the way the rule is written that Lbkr was interfering.

I think if Gronk would have really dug in his cleats to try to get back to the ball and made it look more obvious they wouldnt have picked up the flag.

If the Lbkr is not engaged and holding gronk the gronk could have slowed down and cut off that DBack who eventually made the pick. If that Dback cant get around Gronk then maybe gronk makes a diving catch.

I think it was still pass interference and now the officials have opened up a can of worms.

You are going to be seeing defenses screaming and yelling that balls are uncatchable and there should not be holding.

One NFL officating spokesman said the ball is in the air so there is no longer a Holding penalty but I think that is bullsheet.
 
It was a close call but I think the refs got it right. I'm not convinced the holding or DPI, whichever you want to call, kept Gronk from getting to the ball to the degree the other defensive player was able to cut in front of him to make the INT. The defensive player had a chance to intercept the ball and did before Gronk would have been able to cut back to catch it. But very close play.
 
It was 100% PI and the refs messed up again...it is getting pathetic how sad they have looked this year.
 
New England Patriots seek explanation for game-ending play - ESPN Boston

Following the game, (referee Clete) Blakeman defended his crew's decision, saying the original call was pass interference but that Gronkowski's distance from the ball rendered the pass uncatchable.

"So it was determined at that point in time that when the primary contact occurred on the tight end that the ball, in essence, was coming in underthrown and in essence it was [immediately] at that point intercepted at the front end of the end zone," he said. "So there was a determination that, in essence, uncatchability -- that the ball was intercepted at or about the same time the primary contact against the receiver occurred."

"It just wasn't completed, and there was no flag," Gronkowski said of the play. "There was a flag, but it got called back. I don't even know why they threw it, and there's just no excuse. I'm not trying to be here to make excuses; [the Panthers are] a good football team, they scored more points than us and they beat us straight up."

"It is how it is now, and they took the call back and [we] can't do anything about it. And that's not when the game is [won] and [lost]. They're a very good team; they played tough all four quarters."


I think the referee team got a hard call right. And kudos to Gronkowski for being a stand-up guy and saying the lack of a call was not what cost New England the game.
 

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