nfl

It was a costly mistake by Schwartz but that is one very stupid rule. I could see marching off a ten yard penalty but not reviewing and reversing the bad call by the officials just because a coach threw a challenge flag is a stupid rule that absolutely needs to be reviewed by the rules committee this off season.

I agree with bruisedup. However, it still amazes me how little the average NFL coach knows about the rules.

The way they explained it on TV was that once the challenge flag was thrown illegally, then Detroit could no longer benefit from any review of the play... HUH??? Shouldn't the goal of the league and the refs be to get the play right? The back was clearly down by contact - the refs blew it - the player got up and ran because as was pointed out there was no whistle. But all because the coach challenges a play where no challenge is allowed by the coach - Texans get a free TD.

The two biggest mistakes are 1. The ref's blew the call and 2. the Strib headline that it was the coach's mistake. It was the officials who made the mistake. If all touchdowns are reviewed it should not matter what the coach does. Challenge flags are thrown all the time on plays that cannot be challenged and I have never seen a coach given a penalty. Every coach would want that play reviewed and the procedure to ask for a review is to challenge the call. The NFL has this wrong. Replay is supposed to correct errors, not create gotcha moments. Bet the NFL issues an apology as they support the intrepretation of the rules.

IT WAS THE OFFICIALS MISTAKE! Not the coaches'. Only worse or as bad a call as I'd seen is Don Denkinger's fiasco in the World Series. That guy was out by 2 feet at first. That was horrid and who was looking at this guys knee touching? My God...get it right!

The NFL BLEW THIS GAME NOT the Detroit coaches. How can they not blow the play dead, his knee and elbow touched the carpet. I just hate these refs, they screw up so many games. Just awful, bad, terrible, incompetent, disgraceful, messed up.

I swear, the NFL game has become so ridiculously complicated they might as well just let it be officiated by lawyers and have done with it. The fixation on replay, and rule upon rule to cover every imaginable situation makes the games drag on and on. The interminable stoppages might be good for advertisers, but is this a game or not? I'd prefer it if they scrapped two-thirds of the rule book, let the refs call the game, and if there's a bad call, so be it. With fewer rules there would be fewer calls to make. There's holding on every play as it is, and when they pull apart a pile of a dozen guys, spot the ball, and then measure and say the carrier was two links short that's fairly unbelievable too. They aren't going to solve the problem with traumatic brain injury until they get rid of the hard helmets and pads, and they aren't going to solve bad calls until they get rid of the byzantine legalistic rules. Rugby doesn't have either of those and that's not a sport for babies. Still, it's always kind of nice to see the Lions lose.

I think the NFL will change the rule so that an extra 5 minutes of commercials will be assessed for an illegal challenge, in addition to the 5 minutes of commercials regularly scheduled. They've got to realize it's money out of their pockets by cancelling any chance of stopping play.

The game has become to mired in too many rules. So much so that the coaches, players, fans, announcers and probably some of the refs can't keep track of them all.

The refs missed the call on the initial play - yes. The refs most likely would have overturned it on the mandatory review ... until Jim Schwartz threw the flag in violation of the rules. Then the refs did what they were supposed to do. You can argue the rule needs to be addressed, but you cannot argue the refs blew this game - that one is on Coach Swhwartz. Even he admits that !