Patriots/Carolina No Call

The officials said that the flag was picked up because after conferring, they concluded that the ball would have been uncatchable by the intended receiver even without the contact, thus there is no penalty. The debate is whether the ball was catchable. In the officials judgement (without the benefit of watching a replay) the contact was made at about the same time as the ball was intercepted 3-5 yards in front of Gronk. Since the ball never got to the receiver, it falls under the definition of uncatchable so the contact does not get penalized.

At least, this is my understanding from everything I have read. I am a Panther fan and am happy the game was won, but after watching replays I think the officials may have made a mistake. But then, they are human and in my opinion missed a couple other calls that COULD have affected the game just as much as missing this one did. (The leg whip on Johnson that was not called would have put NE in a 2nd and 20 situation that could have stalled their earlier scoring drive. There was also a head butt from a NE player after a play ended as two players kinda jawed at each other. ) So to say NE lost because of the non-call is a bit disingenuous since they still would have needed to score on the next play from the 1 yard line and you certainly cannot assume they would have (or would not have, for that matter.)

It was an exciting game regardless of the way it ended.

Without knowing for sure, my guess is that the rule on pass interference specifically provides that there is no pass interference if the ball is not catchable (and therefore the erstwhile foul on the defense did not affect the outcome of the play). I am sure that the rules on holding, illegal block in the back, etc. do not differentiate between fouls that affect the outcome of the play and those that don't.

i still don't understand why the last play of the game -- a play in the endzone -- wasn't automatically reviewed...

Your argument doesn't show the officials got the call wrong.

If it shows anything, it shows that the rule book is inconsistent about how players are penalized.

The officials from Monday night's game didn't write the rule book!

From:
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/nfl-review-rules1.htm

Penalties are not reviewable.

I don't know what this means. Rules are Rules. The rules are consistent by definition. Consistency has nothing to do with it.

The game is played according to the rules.

Right. Well, the OP seems to be saying that the rules aren't written correctly.

Take it up with him.

Here is how you would make a case that the rules were "inconsistent". You could argue that there are certain principles behind the rules in the NFL, just like there are universal principles that underlie our own laws. Behind the rule that a ball needs to be catchable for pass interference to have occurred, supposedly there lies the principle that you shouldn't call a penalty on someone whose illegal actions had no effect on the outcome of the play. Well, shouldn't the same general principle apply to how "illegal block in the back" calls are made? If you make an illegal block on one side of the field and if your teammate is returning a kick on the other side, shouldn't the fact that person you're blocking could never have tackled the return-man factor into whether "illegal block" is called? But according to the OP, they call "illegal block in the back" without considering whether the foul affected the outcome of the play. So the logic behind the rules is inconsistent: when you wrote the illegal-block rule you abandoned the logic that lay behind the pass-interference rule.