Neither the ref nor the umpire -- the two most important positions -- were the problems in that game. I don't think Parry had a single bad call. I'm actually not sure if he made any calls, other than reviewing the out of bounds challenge, which he got right. The Umpire's calls seemed to me right on too. He was liberal but not too liberal with holding. (He called the hold that basically killed the Colts last drive and got us the ball back. He also, I believe, called the leg whip, which was the right call.) The linesmen and the line judges were fine too, with the exception of one bad spot. I know people are complaining about the play where the pats went into the neutral zone and drew the indy line into making a false start, but that was not a bad call, IMHO. We've benefited from the inducing a false start a few times this year. I think the linesman called a defensive holding penalty on us, but it was declined anyway because the receiver caught the ball. Not sure who made the illegal touching by a downfield linesman -- could have been the umpire, head linesman, or the field judge. It was the right call in any event.
Bottom line is that it was the side judge and field judge who had bad days. Not sure who was responsible for the picked up flag on the ineligible receiver -- it could have been they or it could have been the umpire or ref's fault for not communicating it to them.
But you can't blame this game on Parry or conclude he's a bad ref. Each official in the NFL gets to call his own penalties, and once they report them to Parry, he won't overrule them. He would never do that. He's nowhere near the play. Even the great Ed Hocchuli doesn't overrule his crew. If the field judges comes up to him and tells him it's PI, it's PI. The most the ref might do is ask the back judge if the ball was catchable.
So, Periera's comment about the ref doing a good job was true. He did. I thought he was fine.
