I think it’s odd, that even in this era of replay reviews, we still have controversies about referees making bad calls. Just an observation. There will.never be perfect calls on each play. There’s an old truism that they can call holding on every play. Things will happen that a referee didn’t see.
You just hope it evens out over time.
That’s why I’m in favor of getting rid of replay, period. Get better officials.
They had a former NFL official on a local sports radio show a few weeks ago, and he made the point that it's actually the opposite of what you might think.
Officiating has seemingly got much worse because television and camera technology has gotten so advanced over the years that it's so much easier to scrutinize things in great detail, at slow speeds, from different angles, etc.
I think they made a mistake when they decided to allow calls to be reviewed but not every play. In this case no call was made so there was nothing to review.
There was a situation in a soccer match where one player head butted another and the official did not see it but they showed it on the giant screen and one of the linesmen stepped in and made the call so that the ref did not look like a complete horses ass.
That is what should have happened here. The play was a foul. It clearly would have affected the outcome, so that is the only reason I could see for ignoring it.
I have been a referee for soccer and I was always glad when I did not have to make a game changing call late in the game. Personally I prefer to have the better team win. With two teams so extremely close then the only thin the ref can and should do is make the right call. If I could see it, then they could too.