Mike Pereira: Regular refs wouldn't have called holding on Gronk

Mike Pereira is the former Vice President of NFL officiating, and now works in the booth for Fox Sports. He joined 98.5 The Sports Hub's Felger and Mazz earlier today to discuss officiating around the NFL. Obviously the critical call on Rob Gronkowski came up first.

You can watch the video of the holding call here.

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I just looked at it again and I would give it what I call an ‘MC.’ What that would be called in our grading vocabulary is what I would call a marginal call,” Pereira said. “You could make that into a hold because Gronkowski does go outside the shoulder and grab him, and the defender does make a reach, but that’s not a lot different than what you see on every play.

“I just don’t think you want that called. That’s what marginal would be. It’s, ‘OK, we’ll give you credit for this, but don’t call that again.’ It just needs to be bigger [to be called a penalty]. … It’s just not enough.”

Felger asked Pereira if the regular NFL officiating crews would have made the same call, and Pereira’s answer was definitive.

“No,” Pereira said.

Listen to the full interview here to hear Mike's thoughts on the quality of the replacement refs, what the lockout is about and some other calls around the NFL made on Sunday.