The Amendola call alone made the difference in the game. If it had been correctly called, we would have had a first and goal; as it turned out we lost the ball on downs.
There was a replay shown at one point in the second half of a play on which a false start was called against the Patriots, and the OL they called it on did not so much as twitch. They called at least three false starts on us in the course of the game; the one on Gronkowski was legitimate; at least one other one was as corrupt and phantom as a call can ever be, and it was in the red zone in the second half.
The PI called on the Patriots in the first quarter kept a drive alive that resulted in a touchdown for the Broncos. It should have been offensive PI if anything, if the same standard that was used all year on Gronkowski had been used; it sure as heck was not PI on Ryan.
Offensive holding was called on the Patriots on their first possession of the game; not once the entire game was it called on Denver, which strains credulity. That penalty killed our first drive.
Several times PI should have been called on Denver but was not; if any one of the multiple instances where the infraction happened near the end zone had been called, it would have been the difference in the game.
I think if I were Roger Goodell and I knew that I had already been responsible for one game this year in which multiple national sports commentators accused the officials of determining the outcome of the game, and I wanted to make sure Brady didn't beat me and get to the Super Bowl, I might lean on the side of making it less obvious rather than more. More obvious is to openly take away everything the Patriots do, as in the regular-season game in Denver; less obvious is to call a handful of mostly-meaningless penalties against the Broncos after the game has already been determined, while refusing in multiple critical moments to call penalties that the Broncos commit that, if called, would give the Patriots too much hope of winning.
Remember that it was not Hochuli and company who gave the Patriots the ball on the screen pass fumble - they called it a forward pass.
But really all you need to look at to know this game was not officiated above-board is the Amendola play. Anyone who is not legally blind can see his knee is down, and the ball is far more in control, when his knee touches the ground, than the ball was in the supposed catch Martavis Bryant made in the end zone that allowed the Broncos to play at home in the second round rather than in Cincinnati; and yet neither Simms nor Nance said a word about it, and the officials pretended his knee didn't touch.
