Now, I think we can all agree that officiating is a challenge, and is rarely done perfectly.  However, I have also heard that football of all sports is the easiest sport to officiate due to the amount of officials on the field (seven).  Now, that does not change certain judgement calls, but I can think of two distinct calls now that have cost teams potential playoffs and Super Bowl Victories in the past three years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvyFIykbqg4

At 1:18, you can find a play that is now known as one of the greatest, if not the greatest catch, in the history of the NFL.  However, if you watch Giants linemen #60, he blatantly holds Richard Seymour, which is more of the reason for Eli Manning not being sacked as opposed to the raw determination people try to say it was.  That one play changed the outcome of the Super Bowl.  If that play becomes a penalty, which it should have been, then there is no way that the Giants win in regulation, or even at all for that matter.

Now I turn to yesterday…

One play after Aaron Rodgers took a helmet-to-helmit hit (no call), there is a blatant face mask.  However, for the second play in a row, the call is missed, and the result of this play is a fumble/interception, and the Cardinals win.  There is no excuse for the head official to miss a call like this.  His one responsibility is to protect the quarterback.  For all the times this season when a roughing the passer penalty was called when the quarterback had a hand brush his helmet, this is inexcusable.

So now, how do we protect against these game-changing miss calls?  How about adding a third, penalty questioning challenge, that can only be used during the last two minutes of each half and overtime.  Working similar to a normal challenge, you could lose a time out, but it would protect the fairness of the sport.  It would maybe become an issue in one game a week, and would not slow the game down at all.  I dont know, its just a thought.  All I know is we have had one recent Super Bowl champion win on a missed call, lets not make it two anytime soon.