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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XIEhTSQ-v8

Insane how bad those calls were.

Several of them are legit: Spoon's PI, both on Jones, Clabo's hands to the face. The holding call for the safety, the block in the back on the KO return, the holds on Ray and Babs are pretty blatant. One thing that this guy missed were two occasions where the NO G, I think the RG both times, shoved the ATL defender in the back to push him past Brees.

ATL lost the game with the coaching, but the officiating was atrocious.

Yes, I do think the NFL wants its darling teams to do well in prime time.

I have no problem with them stopping the game for 5 minutes to celebrate breaking the record. I do have a problem with the refs having very poor judgement on some of these calls.

Par for the course in the NFL? Probably, but that doesn't make it annoying as heck.

If I'm not mistaken, a shove like that is legal along the scrimmage line. As long as the offense does not grab and hold he can hit/shove from behind along the scrimmage line.

Good calls, bad call balance themselves out through the season. It happens. The Falcons lost to a better team. Period.

Yea the refs didn't screw us out of 25 points!!

I've never contended that the refs cost us the game. But my goodness they did figure into it. The safety would have put points on the board, and might have given us decent field position. The non-flag on the off-sides was a completely wasted down. (one of the reasons I absolutely HATE what we do when we know there's an off-sides.) The phantom defenseless receiver call against Lofton, then the non-call for an obvious defenseless receiver hit when Kelly about got crippled made it clear that this officiating squad was against us. New Orleans was doing well enough on their own, so why did the officials have to play such a role in this game? It was pretty blatant.

The Kelly hit is a legit issue that the NFL needs to address. The center of the spine would seem to be one of those danger zones for hits, much like the head. Also, he hasn't turned to run. This would seem to be the very definition of defenseless receiver, but do you really want to take the same-time hit out of the game?

However, Lofton was properly flagged for what I've seen from this year. He hit the receiver in the helmet with his helmet. That should be flagged each and every time if that's going to be the rule. It's probably asking the refs to do to much to decide if the defender really lead with abandon or if the WR initiated the illegal contact (Maclin's a good example of this: He lowers after Dunta committed).

The safety call is absurd and should be looked into, but the rest is probably just run-of-the-mill luck of the draw with the officials; sometime you et the bar, and sometimes the bar et you.

Thanks for the clarification on the block-in-the back non-call, John.

I could be mistaken, but I think the "defenseless receiver" rule only applies to hits to the head or helmet. If a receiver goes up for a pass and a defender cuts his legs in midair, that doesn't result into a penalty, although the fact that the receiver has left his feet now qualifies him as a defenseless receiver.

The lower back/spine is a sensitive area of the body, and a doctor/expert could correct me otherwise, but it typically takes significantly more force than the human body generally generates to cause serious life-threatening trauma due to the rigid/strengthen musculature of the back, which is not the case when it comes to the neck or head which are essentially unprotected and flexible. Thus, why Kelly played today without being any worse for wear except a sore back.

Generally speaking, if a defender goes low with exception to hitting a QB, he will generally be in the clear. The various rules only really apply when it comes to hits to the neck, shoulder, or head.

The refs weren't "against us" they just had a bad day. It happens. The conspiracy theories that circulate whenever refs call a lopsided game gets pretty exaggerated don't ya think? I mean, this isn't the NBA people!

I totally agree that the refs do not favor one side or the other. the new slew of rules are litigation driven and I suspect don't have a whole lot of medical/scientific basis. the blows to the head are not the main culprit so much a sthe whiplash as has been discussed here multiple time, therefore, cutting the legs ot from beneath a leaping reciever is really much more likely to cuase damage as he hits the ground than an occasional and incidental glancing off the helmet such as the call on Lofton was. It's all so absurd given the speed of the game.