If they could have, of course they should have.... Is your expectation that in every process in which humans are almost entirely material, that it go perfect? If I order a Filet medium rare and the waiter reads back a pork chop, should I not correct him or should I just roll with it and whine endlessly about it afterwords and how I had no recourse? I agree, the ref made a mistake and I have no issue with him being made accountable. He and his crew are terrible. They called one game a couple of months ago with 10 penalties on one team and 0 in the other, which is almost impossible. They shouldn't let him or his crew anywhere near the playoffs and probably should break it up, but let's try and be reasonable in which the Lions AFTER the mistake was made had more timely recourse then to just go.... Damn, those refs suck. They didn't even lose or win the game on that play, just the possible lead. They still could have most likely got to OT. I agree the refs made a mistake. But context does matter and IMO, after said mistake, they chose one of the worst possible ways to deal with it. Just like the Cowboys after the phantom tripping call, dealt with it poorly and made a series of bad decisions.