Simultaneous Seattle

With all of the exasperation surrounding last night's game between Seattle and Green Bay, there needs to be some objective voice in all of the noise.  I hope to be that voice. Hopefully, after reading this, people on both sides of the issue can both breathe a little bit easier.
Let me take you up to the play in question:
All night long, we(the viewing public) were treated to and endless parade of yellow laundry. This occurred so much that at the end of every play instead of appreciating a good offensive or defensive effort at the end of every play, I was looking to the bottom right of the screen fully expecting to see the time clock replaced by the Packer yellow "Flag" appear on the screen.  Both teams were victimized by bad calls, with the occasional good call thrown in there just so we had some measure of faith that the referees weren't blind.   It is my assertion that the last play of the game was not even close to being the determining factor in the game. Two other calls were far more important (one went against each team):

Phantom PI #1:
On 3rd and 2 from the Seattle 47 with roughly 10 minutes left in the game and in the midst of a Green Bay 16 play 82 yard scoring drive, a pass from Aaron Rodgers to Jermichael Finley was broken up by Kam Chancellor, which should have brought about a punt with less than 10 minutes to go and Green Bay trailing 7-6.  Enter flag from Side Judge.  Chancellor broke on this ball, placed his right arm around Finley's arms and knocked the ball away at the same instant he hit Finley from behind. Simultaneously.(Yes I chose that word on purpose). This play allowed Green Bay's drive to continue and score the go ahead touchdown. Without this 'penalty' this drive does not continue and Green Bay may or may not have scored again.

Phantom PI #2:On 1st and 25 from the Seattle 43 roughly 6:00 left in the game. Russell Wilson lofts a pass down the left sideline to Sidney Rice.  Sam Shields is in front of Rice, looking at the ball, neither of his hands are even on Sidney Rice.  The ball makes it through to Rice, who slightly pushes off of Shields with his right hand (otherwise he may have caught the ball, as it hit him between the numbers). The ball falls harmlessly to the ground.  Enter flag from back side judge.  A 32 yard penalty that brought Seattle to the brink of tying the game. They did not. As a matter of fact, they did not even score points. Penalty does not hurt Green Bay.

Both of those plays were clear cut non-penalties on the defense that were called erroniously. Poor calls, phantom calls. Different from the last play of the game. Here's how.

Final play of the game: Russell Wilson lofts the ball from the Green Bay 24 yard line to the left side of the end zone.  7 players are near the ball: Green Bay's M.D. Jennings, Charles Woodson, Tramon Williams, Sam Shields, and Jarrett Bush & Seattle's Charly Martin and Golden Tate.  Seattle Receiver Golden Tate, shoves Green Bay's Sam Shields in the back(a play I have no problem with because PI is not called either way on the last play of the game, and Shields was slightly off balance prior to the push, making it look worse than it actually was).  The ball comes down with Jennings,Woodson, Martin and Tate jumping up for it.  The ball lands in the middle of a muddled group of hands, with 4 hands appearing to grasp the ball at the same time. Two of them belong to Green Bay's M.D. Jennings, two belonging to Seattle's Golden Tate. As the players begin to come down, Tate's right hand temporarily comes off of the ball, only to return to it only a split second later as both he and M.D. Jennings fall to the ground in a heap. At no point does either player retain sole possession of the ball, nor does either player step out of bounds.  Though the ball is held to the chest of M.D. Jennings, the ball has never been in M.D. Jennings' sole possession.  The officials come in after both players have fallen to the ground.  What did happen: The back judge (who did not have a good view of the hands grasping the ball from the start) and the side judge(who had a good view of the play from the initial grasping of the ball to the ground) waited until the players hit the ground, looked at each other and proceeded to give polar opposite calls. The back judge's mistake was not being assertive enough with his call to review it with the side judge, and instead acquiescing to the side judge's call of "Touchdown".What should have happened(And would've had the real officials been involved: Both officials look at one another, discuss the play, and come to a decision mutually. If they cannot agree, the white capped head referee comes down, listens to both officials and determines which one he feels is more sure of the call and rules in his favor. Whichever way he had ruled (ruling on the field) could not have been overturned unless one of the players in question was deemed to have been out of bounds or if the ball had hit the ground. Since neither of those things happened, whatever the ruling on the field was, would have been upheld. The bottom line of this call is that it is NOT clearly an interception or a touchdown, but a call that, even if the regular officials had been involved could have been called either way.  The only difference between the replacement officials and the regular officials, in this instance, is the regular officials would have handled it properly and whichever way they had ruled, would have gone about it the right way. Personally, though M.D. Jennings appears to have had MORE of the ball, it seemed as though the 'initial grasp' of the ball between he and Golden Tate was simultaneous when watched in super slow motion.

Regardless of which side you sit on this play, its clear that the play is not clear cut and either one way or the other. I do not believe that this call decided the game, but rather the two PI calls had much more of an impact on the game because they were CLEARLY not penalties, but replacement officials botching their job.

Happy Debating, and I sincerely hope the owners see that their product is being diluted and corrupted and spend the extra $160,000 per team to get the real officials back to maintain the integrity of the NFL.

Greg