NFL says call was blown

This time it's bettors who pay

The latest incorrect call by National Football League officials didn't affect who won the game, but it cost some bettors.

Pittsburgh defeated San Diego Sunday at Heinz Field in the first 11-10 final in NFL history. But the league said yesterday that after Steelers safety Troy Polamalu returned a loose ball 12 yards for a touchdown on the final play of the game, the on-field ruling that Polamalu had scored was incorrectly reversed.

With Pittsburgh a 4-point favorite, winners turned into losers and losers ended up winning when a game that should have ended up 17-10 or 18-10 didn't.

"Anyone who had a bet on the Pittsburgh side and thought they had won [the bet] wasn't too happy," said John Avello, director of the race and sports book at the Wynn resort in Las Vegas.

The NFL said, "After replay review and crew conference, the on-field ruling of touchdown was incorrectly reversed to no touchdown due to an illegal forward pass by San Diego."

There were three passes on the play. The first was from San Diego's Philip Rivers to LaDainian Tomlinson. The second, from Tomlinson to Chris Chambers, was initially ruled a legal backward pass but then reversed in replay to an illegal forward pass. The third, from Chambers, was a legal backward pass that hit the ground and was returned for the TD by Polamalu.

If any forward pass, legal or illegal, hits the ground, the play is dead immediately. The officiating crew mistakenly determined that the backward pass that Polamalu legally recovered and returned for the TD was the pass that was reversed in replay to being forward and illegal. Therefore, the crew ruled the ball was dead when it hit the ground and the play was over. (The actual illegal forward pass - Tomlinson to Chambers - did not hit the ground and therefore the play is allowed to continue.)

"We should have let the play go through in the end," said referee Scott Green immediately after the game.