Patriots hurt by NFL's mystifying decision to uphold Raiders' game-tying touchdown, leading to insane loss on final play

BOSTON -- When the NFL made a mess of the catch rule with Hunter Henry on Thanksgiving, there was at least the vague wording of the catch rule to explain the mystery.

This time ... this time was a bit mystifying. 

On Sunday, Keelan Cole made a catch in the back corner of the end zone over rookie cornerback Marcus Jones to tie the game at 24-24. But replays showed that Cole's left toe came down out of bounds.

The scoring play was automatically reviewed, and multiple replays showed Cole's toe touching down on the white out of bounds line.

However, FOX color commentator Jonathan Vilma said it might be too close to call. Rules analyst Dean Blandino said it might not be clear and obvious. And the review in New York with VP of officiating Walt Anderson was taking an extremely long time.

After the lengthy review process, referee Ronald Torbert address the crowd in Las Vegas and announced that the ruling on the field stands, that the touchdown was good.

The PAT was also good, and the game was tied at 24-24 in the final minute of play.

That's when things got even crazier, with the Patriots failing to head into overtime and instead trying to run a series of laterals to score the game-winning touchdown at the end of regulation.

Jakobi Meyers' long pass back to the middle of the field was caught by Chandler Jones, who ran over Mac Jones and continued all the way in to the end zone for the game-winning score.

As for the Cole touchdown, Anderson said there was no definitive camera shot that showed Cole's foot being out of bounds.

"We looked at every available angle and it was not clear and obvious that the foot was on the white," Anderson told pool reporter Mike Reiss. "It was very tight, very close. There was no shot that we could see -- we even enhanced and blew up the views that we had. There was nothing that was clear and obvious that his foot was touching the white."

Anderson added: "Probably the best view was what we term a 'high end zone' view. TV gave us the most enhanced view that they had as well. We blew it up and I believe TV blew it up and there was nothing that was clear and obvious either way. Had the ruling on the field been incomplete, we would not have been able to change that either."

The Raiders won 30-24, on one of the most wild finishes in NFL history. But it was all based on a touchdown that looked like it should not have counted.