Referee gives weak excuse for not calling DPI against Chiefs on Kyle Pitts play

The Atlanta Falcons had the Kansas City Chiefs on the ropes in their eventual 22-17 loss to the back-to-back defending Super Bowl champs but alas, the referees have become a talking point once again. Late in the game, the Falcons had the ball on the Chiefs' six-yard line after driving down the field on what ended up being a 15-play, 83-yard drive.

On 3rd-and-5, Kirk Cousins threw the pass to Kyle Pitts, who couldn't come up with the catch and the play was ruled incomplete. On further review, it was pretty obvious that Chiefs safety Bryan Cook interfered with Pitts on the play and the Falcons should have received a fresh set of downs.

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Unfortunately, DPI was not called on the play and the Falcons failed to convert on 4th-and-5. While the Falcons did have a chance to win the game again on their next drive, it's the lack of a call on a key play by the officials that is the talking point of this game.

What was the officials' excuse for not calling DPI on Cook there? According to head ref Tra Blake, "From the angle that [the officials] had at the time, they did not feel that there was a foul committed".

Refs "did not feel that there was a foul committed" on key 3rd down

This is obviously not going to fly with Falcons fans. Cook was absolutely interfering with Pitts on the play and it should have been called. Had the roles been reversed and it was a Falcons safety on a Chiefs tight end (say, Jessie Bates on Travis Kelce) that the refs wouldn't have seen that? Smells fishy, doesn't it?

That being said, the Falcons had other opportunities to win the game and they couldn't get it done. They tried to convert on fourth down on the very next play and came up short when they could have kicked the field goal and then only been down by two. That would have meant all they'd need was a field goal on the final drive and we wouldn't have had to see whatever the heck that fourth-and-inches play was.

This was a disappointing defeat for the Falcons especially when it felt like they had a key victory snatched out of their hands. With that said, the refs are going to miss calls and things like this always happen against the Chiefs.