Apart from whether Cowboys linebacker Anthony Hitchens should or shouldn’t have drawn a penalty for pass interference or holding and whether Dez Bryant should or shouldn’t have been flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, the controversy became even bigger because of the way referee Pete Morelli handled it.
After the play, Morelli turned on his microphone and declared that number 59 had committed pass interference. Then, in a moment that wasn’t televised by FOX, Morelli came back and said that there is no foul on the play.
“I think mechanically it could have been handled much better,” NFL V.P. of officiating Dean Blandino said on Monday’s debut edition of PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio. “I think we don’t want to make an announcement that there’s a penalty, start to put the football down, and then make another announcement that we’re picking up the flag. We want to get together get all of the information before there is an official announcement, and I think had that happened it would have mitigated some of the response to this. But the head linesman came in, he didn’t recognize that there was a foul initially, he went over to the back judge as Pete was making the announcement. [I] would have preferred Pete not to make the announcement that quick and to wait get together, talk about it and then decide if we were going to pick up the flag or not. So that part of it I think we could have handled better.”
Blandino also addressed the league’s expectations when a referee starts talking to the crowd in the stadium and the audience at home.
“I think we wanted to make a clear, concise, distinct, announcement as to why the flag was picked up,” Blandino said. “That there wasn’t enough contact for pass interference and hopefully that will help explain it, clarify it, so we’d like the referee to give some type of explanation. He did make an announcement, it was as Troy [Aikman] and Joe [Buck] were talking so it didn’t come out very clear over the broadcast, but we certainly wanted to explain concisely why the flag was picked up.”
If you want to read more from what Blandino said -- in addition to the excellent posts from MDS regarding the interview -- you can review the entire transcript right here.
