By Dave Goldberg
The Associated Press

The most telling words in the NFL's latest officiating brouhaha came from referee Ron Blum during Saturday's Pittsburgh Steelers-Tennessee Titans divisional playoff game.

"I don't believe that's a challengeable play, but I will check," Blum told a national audience when Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher asked for a replay review of whether Derrick Mason's knee hit the ground at the start of a long punt return.

It turns out, Blum was told, that it was a play that could be challenged, just as Cowher argued.

Thus did Week 2 of the NFL playoffs start the way Week 1 ended: With questions about the men in black-and-white stripes.

And there were questions right down to the penultimate play of the Steelers-Titans game. That's when a running-into-the-kicker call negated a missed field goal by Tennessee's Joe Nedney and allowed him to kick the winner in overtime.

That won't elicit the "mea culpa" statements from the league the way the errors in last weekend's New York Giants-San Francisco 49ers game did, but it's another indication that all isn't right in the land of the zebras.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Sunday that supervisor of officials Mike Pereira had determined that Blum's eventual decision on Mason's return and the late penalty call both were correct. Despite Cowher's anger, there are unlikely to be any further public statements.

From Cowher's perspective, the question was whether the penalty that gave Nedney a second chance should have been called in overtime of a playoff game.

The kicker's comments afterward didn't help.

"After I retire from kicking, maybe I'll take up acting," Nedney said after clearly taking a dive when brushed by Pittsburgh's Dwayne Washington.

But as Pereira determined, even if it wasn't much of a hit, it's still defined as a penalty.

More disturbing was Blum's admission that he didn't know what is reviewable and what isn't. To his credit, he listened to Cowher, a former chairman of the rule-making competition committee, and checked with the supervisors in the press box.

Blum reviewed the play and agreed that Mason's knee had been down at the beginning of his return.

Strange happenings: A coach tells a referee the rules, instead of the other way around - especially a referee rated high enough among his peers to work a playoff game.

Also strange: Pittsburgh linebacker Jason Gildon's claim that he asked umpire Chad Brown for a timeout by name - "Chad, timeout!" - and Brown told him the Steelers had none left.

They did have timeouts, but Blum said after the game the call came too late - after the play had started.

Maybe the system is flawed.

NFL's quick fix

One problem with officiating during the playoffs is that the crews are so-called "all-star" crews: Men from different groups who haven't worked with each other in the regular season.

That could have accounted for the mixup at the end of the New York-San Francisco game, when the league acknowledged that pass interference should have been called, and the Giants should have had a second try at a game-winning field goal.

The league's solution was to order in-game conferences among officials.

That led to two games Saturday that took over three hours each and included a 10-minute lag during a 55-minute third quarter in Nashville when Blum hesitated, checked and reviewed Mason's return.

Some of the postgame reactions fall under the heading of "we wuz robbed" - complaints of a losing team.

In the Falcons' 20-6 loss in Philadelphia, Atlanta's Ray Buchanan led the charge, although coach Dan Reeves was a little caustic, too. Their biggest gripe was a holding call that wiped out an apparent game-tying touchdown by Michael Vick.

That game was officiated by a group that included three men from the same regular-season crew: referee Mike Carey, umpire Garth DeFelice and back judge Keith Ferguson. Presumably, the teamwork there was OK - at least those three didn't have to be introduced to each other.

Best of the bunch or the best bunch?

The usual panaceas have been suggested, such as fulltime officials. Blum, for example, is a golf pro when he's not officiating.

But having fulltime officials won't make split-second judgment better.

Does a referee, for example, call a marginal running-into-the-kicker penalty in overtime of a playoff game? The league says "Yes," the losing coach says "No."

Another suggestion is to rate crews as well as individuals and assign them to playoff games on their merits as teams.

The argument against that is crews are sprinkled with both veterans and rookies, and some of the league's top officials might miss the playoffs.

But that's the way things go in the playoffs. Of the NFL's 10 leading rushers, only the Giants' Tiki Barber made it to the playoffs. Meanwhile, plenty of rookies make it because they play on good teams.

The point is that football is a team sport, not an individual one.

The same might apply to officiating.

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