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Giants at Eagles. In case you haven’t heard from the voluminous coverage of his remarks, Eagles quarterback Michael Vick thinks he does not get the late-hit penalties that are assessed when it happens to other quarterbacks. He kinda, sorta took it back. Former head of officiating Mike Pereira called it “a bunch of bull” and said that, during his tenure in the NFL league offices, the Eagles were the team that complained the most. (Least: “any team coached by [Bill] Parcells”; although Pereiera didn’t work for the NFL when Parcells coached the Giants.)

Redskins at Cowboys. A colorful officiating critique (audio) from Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall on a facemask penalty:

I told the ref he’s going to fucking lose his job. … I told the ref, “That might have been the worst call of the game.” He’s going to get some demerit points for that call because that was no facemask.

WEEK 9: STEELERS AT BENGALS

The NFL does not generally make public announcements regarding mistaken calls by the referees. Occasionally, they will contact the team with such an admission, and these conversations are generally confidential. Generally, these conversations are only leaked out, and Vikings coach Brad Childress found out two weeks ago that the league doesn’t appreciate these admissions making the public wire. He was fined for disclosing this confidential information.

It’s unknown whether a league or team source was the tip-off, but Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Gerry Dulac  reported on Friday that the NFL had agreed with Steelers coach Mike Tomlin on two contested calls from the Monday night game. The two calls on consecutive plays helped set up the Bengals on the 1-yard line for a fourth-quarter touchdown:

• A low-hit call on Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer was penalized 15 yards on nose tackle Casey Hampton.
• Cornerback Ike Taylor was penalized for pass interference on Bengals receiver Terrell Owens.

The first call is in an odd category of an acceptable call. The league has long told the officials that if they are unsure of head and knee contact being illegal, they should err on the side of safety and call the penalty. So even though the league may agree that there was no penalty because Palmer’s thigh was contacted, and not his knee, the official was following the safety-first provision.

The crew was headed by Ron Winter.

Week 13: 49ers at Seahawks

As NFL head coaches are wont to do on a weekly basis, 49ers coach Mike Singletary has registered a complaint with the league office regarding some questionable calls in Sunday’s game against the Seahawks. First, Singletary does acknowledge that important caveat at the end of his remark that we frequently mention here: referees don’t decide games any more than the weather does.

Here are Singletary’s comments from his press conference:

Every week we send a letter to the league about different calls that are made or not made in a game. Just to say this week, there will be several paragraphs that will be going to the league.

[Questioned about specific plays:] There were many.

[Questioned about an uncalled 4th-and-goal pass interference:] Let me say this before I go too far down this road, obviously there were bad calls made and I think in every game there are bad calls made. Yesterday, for me, there were just a few more than I had witnessed maybe since I’ve been in the league and I just want to make sure that our players, coaching staff, our fans, everybody involved with the 49ers, everybody that cares about the 49ers, I want them to understand that this is not about the referees. They didn’t fumble the ball. They didn’t throw interceptions. They didn’t make bad plays, we did. So I don’t want to put this on the referees. I certainly feel that some of those calls were questionable, but if we had done what we were supposed to do, we overcome that and we win the football game.

The pass interference non-call came early in the first quarter (video, first highlight). The Associated Press reports that another call in the communique to the league may include a late-game reception by the Seahawks that set up the tie-breaking field goal (video). Singletary is seen complaining to line judge Ron Phares for, apparently, the lack of an illegal contact or offensive pass interference penalty.

Week 10: Seahawks at Cardinals

Seahawks coach Jim Mora is petitioning the league on 17 plays in Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals, as reported by Danny O’Neil of The Seattle Times. While it is routine that coaches submit questionable calls to the league office, Mora said it was “probably three times as many as I have in any game.”

Mora would not elaborate on all of the plays, but apparently some disputed pass interference calls are part of the mix. Mora did note, however, that quarterback Matt Hasselbeck was gasping for air after a forearm was planted on his neck after being sacked. There was no roughness penalty called on the play.

Darnell Dockett, the player administering the offending forearm, was quick to respond on his Twitter feed, which we have detwitterfied for your reading enjoyment:

Dear Coach Mora: It’s football. Shit happens, and if you ever played the game you’d understand. Really, I would [not] try to hurt Matt. He’s a good guy.

Dockett was too fast to toss the four-letter word in there, but did not realize that he forgot the critical word not (which is followed by “*wouldnt” in his next tweet). We will know by Friday if the league feels that a fine happens, too.

Update, 11/21/09: Dockett was fined $7,500 for the hit.