We know this much:
This was a Playoff officiating crew, should be on top of the rules and capable of enforcing them
We know they enforced two 15-yard penalties that were technically good calls against the Bengals. The first (hit on defenseless receiver) was clear-cut, and moved the Steelers into FG range for a 50-yarder. The second was an interesting one, a 15-yarder that moved the FG to 35 yards...I think we can all agree a 35 yarder vs. 50 yarder makes a big difference in that situation.
We know they willfully ignored or did not enforce two 15 yard penalties against the Steelers -- the Spearing penalty that resulted in a change of possession instead of 1st & Goal for the Bengals which would have likely led to points for the Bengals. They then missed that a representative of the Steelers was on the field when he shouldn't have been, which led to the 2nd 15 yard penalty on the Bengals. Those would have off-set leaving a 50 yard attempt.
The point I was making is that the veteran officiating crew really screwed up this game...they missed a major penalty which resulted in a Turnover and cost one team points, momentum, etc.
The call was so bad it changed what was already a challenging environment into a down-right hostile one, throughout the stadium.
The lead official had to see on the replay that they'd blown a major, major call when he justified the fumble. They all have earpieces on, is it not so that they can communicate this fact amongst themselves?
I've read here that contact with an official is an auto-flag for 15 yards. Well, first, so is Spearing, and they didn't flag that. Second, as a result of the officials' horrendous missed call, there were about 3-4 major altercations over the last 10-15 mins of the game. Presumably there were tens if not a hundred incremental "contacts" between the officials and the players as they kept these conflicts, which flared because of the officials' own incompetence, to small skirmishes and separated the players...so it's NOT true that contact with an official is an automatic flag. There appears to be a healthy level of discretion the officials can bring to bear on the situation.
And what I'm suggesting, is since they had screwed up so bad...the officials should have reached back into that bag of discretion and not penalized the Bengals on that last play...they moved the FG from 50 yards to 35, further ensuring the Steelers would win after all they'd already done to change the outcome of the game.
YES, I think the official should have used his discretion to not throw the last flag, as annoying as Jones might have been, because they'd already helped determine the outcome of the game way more than they should ever.
One last point, where is there a statute of limitations on some penalties and not others...the officials can gather and throw a late Flag on Grounding but not Spearing? It was an obvious penalty, why can't they see the replay, see it was an obvious foul and drop a flag? What's the reason?
The Bengals lost their cool, but they were hosed, plain and simple. But, CBS and the NFL wanted a Steelers/Broncos rematch and they got what they wanted. I would imagine this "elite" officiating crew will be well-comped for helping to facilitate a more attractive TV match-up.
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