Lots to talk about today.

San Diego vs. New England
The crew for this game consisted of 5 officials from Jeff Triplette’s crew, including Tripplette, one from Bill Carollo’s crew and one from Ed Hochuli’s crew. Triplette is a Colonel in the US Army reserve and has already served one tour of duty in Iraq.

Early in the game there was a pass play in the back of the end zone in which the receiver was ruled to have come down out of bounds. The same receiver had stepped beyond the end line and then come back in the field of play and caught the ball. Had he been ruled in bounds, the pass completion would have been negated by an illegal touching penalty. The back line is treated the same as the sideline for purposes of being in or out of bounds.

Giants vs. Packers
The crew for this game was headed by Terry McAuley who has worked 4 Conference championships and 1 Super Bowl in 9 years as a Referee. He is clearly the #1 Referee in the league today. The rest of his game crew consisted of one member of his regular season’s crew, Ron Winter’s Umpire, 2 from Jerome Bogner’s crew, one from Gerry Austin’s crew and one from John Parry’s crew.

Early in the game, there was a forward fumble out of bounds by Burress. As such, the ball is returned to the spot of the fumble and the clock is wound as the play ended in bounds. Had the fumble gone backwards, it would have been placed at the spot where it went out of bounds and the clock would have been held as a play that ended out of bounds.

The hold by Diehl was a good call as he virtually tackled the defensive lineman. As I have said all season, if your man goes to the ground, holding will be called more often than not.

The DPI call on Johnson vs. Driver was marginal although he did make some contact before the ball got to the receiver. Given the way that play-off games are typically officiated, this is one that they could have let go.

The DPI call on Al Harris was an easy call on the Giants TD drive as was the late hit on Manning. Two penalties that really helped the Giants.

On both sideline catches, one by Burress and one by Toomer, the on-field officials got extremely tough calls correct the first time. These are extremely tough calls to make as one official watches the ball and the other watches the feet and then they have to get together to talk about what they saw.

On the Lee TD in the back of the end zone he clearly got both feet down although he was somewhat nonchalant with the second one.

On the Unsportsmanlike Conduct call on Madison, FOX never showed a replay so it was impossible to tell what he did or if it was a good call or not.

The Giants got away with one when Toomer clearly pushed off but did not make the catch. This has been a habit of his throughout his career and some times he gets caught.

On the Manning sack by KGB, it looked like he was clearly moving before the snap but it was impossible to tell from the views provided by FOX if he broke the plane of the LOS before the snap started. As neither wing official threw a flag, I can only assume that it was a good “No call.”

On Bradshaw’s TD run, the Giants should have been called for helping the runner (although this is never called) as one of the linemen literally dragged or carried him into the end zone. This is a penalty that should be removed from the book if they are not going to call it.

The holding call on Snee was somewhat questionable but again his man went to the ground and that is what the Umpire saw and threw the flag. Unfortunately, Snee has a habit (and reputation) of holding and that often works against him.

For all of those, especially the contributors to the Message Board, who have complained that there is/was a perceived plot by the NFL officials to somehow “get” the Giants, I would strongly suggest that you get over your paranoia and recognize that the Giants have gotten the benefit of most of the calls in most of the games this season including, especially, in the playoffs. The guys that did both games today in terrible conditions should be applauded for their efforts and the manner in which they controlled and worked the game. In neither game was there any basis for either team to complain about the officiating.

Now on to Glendale, where the Referee will be Mike Carey, the same Referee that worked the Giants – Patriots game at the end of the season, and the rest of the crew will be the highest ranked, eligible official at their respective positions.