I've thought about it, and I have a theory as to why this one was bungled.   

 

First of all, these refs are like an all star squad.   It's not a crew that's worked together all season.  

 

It used to be, when someone threw a flag, the referees got together face to face and hashed it out.   That gave the other refs time to disagree.   But now, they have those earpieces and microphones and that's how they communicate with each other.   It supposedly speeds up the game.  

 

So this time, one guy throws the flag, and tells the head ref over their new communication system, pass interference on # whatever.   The ref announces it.   Then he gets word from another official that they need to pick up the flag, so he picks it up.   (That's the official explanation so far.)  

 

The problem is, in the past, the refs would get together in a huddle and hash it out.  So the fans would see there was some kind of disagreement.   Now, in the interest of speeding up the game, they don't have to do that.   The fans can't see what's going on.  

 

This introduces another problem.  The fans are now free to speculate on who spoke to the head referee in his earpiece.   Was it another official?   Someone in New York?   Jerry Jones?   A big time gambler?  

 

I think in the interest of modern technology and speeding up the game, the fans are now in the dark about what happened. 

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