Missed calls help set stage for Super Bowl

It's Super Bowl Week (which lasts two weeks to fully aggrandize a game), so indulge me another post about football. 

The hot news this week, much to the chagrin on National Football League executives, is all about badly missed calls in the NFC and AFC Championship games last Sunday. Fans of the New Orleans Saints and the Kansas City Chiefs think their teams were robbed of Super Bowl slots because of bad officiating.

Gripes about the officiating are common in all sports that leave some key penalties and declarations in the hands of referees, umpires and officials. Most of these calls involve some human judgment, which is fallible. What makes last Sunday's gripes a little different is that the faulty judgment was displayed in slow motion and seemed clearly mistaken. The Saints complained vociferously about a pass interference incident that was not called. The game officials did not see a violation of the rules and made no call. In the AFC game, the Chiefs complained that game officials' quickness to call penalties that were not flagrant or obvious — no harm, no foul, play-on situations — or a game-changing call that was simply mistaken. These calls were made in the crucial final minutes of the close game. The most egregious was a roughing-the-passer call (15-yard penalty) that replay showed didn't happen. The defensive lineman's swipe at Patriots' QB Tom Brady missed him entirely.

In nearly every game played there are missed calls, sins of commission or sins of omission by the officials. Most of the time, these missed calls balance out, and both teams have some justification for their grievances. But these were division championship games, and the missed calls were more obvious than is usual.

The NFL has tried to reduce game-changing mistakes by incorporating reviews of instant replays that frequently overturn the instantaneous opinions of the referees. But instant replay reviews take time and are frustrating for fans and teams. Neither of the key penalties in the division championships were reviewable under current rules. Those rules might change, but don't expect changes that second-guesses every call on the field. That would be chaotic.

Fans and teams will have to accept that calling penalties on the football field is an inexact science hindered by human frailty. Instant replay can only do so much, and videos can be as misleading and as misjudged as live action.

Enjoy the game on Feb. 3 and hope for fewer controversial calls.