Tony Romo nails officiating crew on 2 key plays late in Broncos’ comeback win over Philadelphia

The top CBS broadcast team was treated to a fantastic game on Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia, but color commentator Tony Romo couldn’t help but point out just how big a role the officials had in the Denver Broncos’ comeback win over the Eagles.

Denver entered the fourth quarter down 17-3, but scored 18 unanswered points to close the game. The Broncos made tons of huge plays to win, but Romo, announcer Jim Nantz and rules analyst Gene Steratore pointed out two strange refereeing decisions in both directions as Denver mounted its comeback.

First, on Denver’s drive to take back the lead, officials called an offensive pass interference that set the Broncos back on a big third down. Romo noted that the referees appeared to register it as an illegal pick play, whereas in reality the Eagles defensive backs simply ran into one another.

“I don’t think that’s pass interference,” Steratore said. “I feel like that receiver is pulling the defensive player back into the defender, and I don’t think I have offensive pass interference there.”

While the Broncos converted the ensuing third down and scored on the drive anyway, the officials would loom large on Denver’s next drive as well.

On a second down with less than four minutes to go, the refs took back an intentional ground penalty on quarterback Bo Nix. It was a close call, but the problem was the referees did not announce the change after replay review corrected them.

So the Broncos suddenly went from a very long third down to merely an incomplete pass and a more manageable third-and-6, which they converted en route to a field goal to go up four points.

“Not that big of a deal. Just a HUGE deal,” Romo said slyly.

Perhaps it all evened out because each missed call went in a different direction. But neither the fans in Denver or Philadelphia, nor anyone watching on CBS across the country, likely wanted refereeing to loom so large over the result of a big game.

And in both cases, the plays strongly affected the direction of the drive.

Romo was ready to call both out, and Eagles fans will likely remember the non-call on the potential intentional grounding for a while as Denver ended their undefeated start to the season.