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After the Detroit Lions' 45-28 loss to the New Orleans Saints, here are three issues that merit further examination:

Kevin SeifertAfter their first playoff appearance since the 1999 season, the Detroit Lions are due for a checkup.
1. The success of 2011 will bring the Lions a busy offseason and some difficult decisions. Coach Jim Schwartz has completed three years of a four-year contract and likely will get a new deal. Receiver Calvin Johnson will have an astronomic salary-cap number approaching $20 million, making him a strong candidate for a contract extension that would lower his 2012 cap figure. Defensive end Cliff Avril, middle linebacker Stephen Tulloch and cornerback Eric Wright will all be unrestricted free agents. Avril led the team in sacks (11), Tulloch led the team with 111 tackles and Wright was second with four interceptions. They'll be a costly trio to re-sign, especially Avril, who might require a franchise tag.
2. We wondered last week how much the Saints would blitz quarterback Matthew Stafford, who faced five or more pass rushers on a lower percentage (24) than any other NFL starter during the regular season. As it turned out, the Saints blitzed on 55 percent of his dropbacks, the most of any game in his career. Stafford accounted well for himself, throwing for 380 yards and three touchdowns and not taking a sack. He did throw two interceptions, but that was after the Lions had fallen behind by two scores in the fourth quarter. The best NFL quarterbacks invite the blitz because they're confident they'll find the resulting mismatches, and Stafford belongs in that category.
3. Our other big point of discussion last week was whether the Lions could pressure Saints quarterback Drew Brees with their front four and then capitalize on potential mistakes. That's how you win a shootout. The Lions did get some incremental pressure, despite blitzing on only 10 percent of Brees' dropbacks, but it wasn't enough to throw him off his game. Schwartz suggested his team had an uphill battle in that regard. "The officials took the approach of letting them play," Schwartz said. "There weren't going to be any holding penalties in this game, and that showed in the protection they were able to get." Indeed, the Saints did not have a holding call among their three penalties. The Lions had one, against right tackle Gosder Cherilus.

And here is one issue I still don't get:

Why did a whistle blow after defensive end Willie Young sacked Brees in the second quarter? Brees fumbled, and linebacker Justin Durant scooped up the ball at the Lions' 38-yard line to began what would have been a touchdown return. Presumably, a member of Tony Corrente's crew blew the whistle because he thought it was an incomplete pass rather than a fumble. We don't know that for sure, though. But in such instances, NFL rules require the play to be ruled dead upon recovery. Schwartz was none too pleased. "Every other time in this league, they let that play go and they don't blow the whistle," Schwartz said. "… For some reason in this game, they decided to blow the whistle when that would have been seven points." It wasn't a play that cost the Lions a game, but it is one for which they deserve an explanation.

You overwhelmed the mailbag this week with exasperation over another seemingly illegal but unpenalized hit on Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, this one a helmet-to-helmet blow that caused a concussion at the end of a 16-13 overtime loss at the Washington Redskins. So I decided to combine our weekly Dirty Laundry post with the mailbag and try to make some sense out of this issue.

As you know by now, Rodgers had just released a pass in overtime when Redskins defensive end Jeremy Jarmon hit the front of his head with his helmet. Redskins safety LaRon Landry intercepted the errant throw at the Packers' 39-yard line, setting up the Redskins' game-winning field goal. Replays showed Jarmon holding his hands up as if to signify he had pulled up before the hit, but there is no denying that illegal contact occurred. The resulting call should gave returned possession to the Packers and put them at the 39-yard line.

On Friday, the NFL fined Jarmon $5,000 for unnecessary roughness -- a tacit admission that referee Gene Steratore's crew missed the call. The same thing happened last January, when referee Scott Green's crew failed to call Arizona Cardinals defensive lineman Bertrand Berry for another clear helmet-to-helmet hit in the Packers' overtime loss.

Having not seen every play of every game Rodgers has started, those were the two major calls that popped in my head. After opening up the issue on Twitter, readers brought up at least a half-dozen other calls that were questionable at best.

Jon of Madison, Wis., wrote this representative plea:

Being a Packer fan, I am pretty upset with the way Aaron Rodgers is abused on the field without penalty. Now, I watch almost every game that is broadcasted in my area and it seems as though it only happens to Rodgers. And I'm not saying that as a blind fan. I would like to see the stats on Rodgers roughing penalties vs. all the other QB's in the league and would also like to see how many no calls penalties he has had. I can think of at least four helmet-to-helmet big hits that happened since last year.

Unfortunately, the NFL almost never comments on individual calls or on team-by-team disparities. There isn't a lot of data on it either. But one avenue I'm just starting to explore -- with a push from NFC West colleague Mike Sando and a big assist from ESPN's Stats & Information -- is tracking the tendencies of the 17 individual officiating crews.

After messing around with a spreadsheet for a while, I turned up this interesting and possibly relevant nugget: Steratore's crew hasn't made a single unnecessary roughness call all season. It's the only crew without one. For context, referee Tony Corrente's crew is at the high end with 11. And for what it's worth, Green's 2010 crew has made three such calls.

Steratore's crew has called three roughing-the-passer penalties this season, and no crew has called more than four. But the helmet-to-helmet call technically falls under unnecessary roughness, not roughing the passer. We all know how violent NFL games are. Objectively speaking, Steratore's crew has been awfully stingy on the former.

I don't think we have enough data to suggest Rodgers has had the misfortune of getting hit in the head during games officiated by crews that don't often make that call. But just as we see in baseball, I think we can all agree that NFL games are impacted to some extent by the subjective and inconsistent decisions of their rotating officials.

Even with that said, I can't accept that officials who are stingy with a certain call should have missed either the Jarmon or Berry hits. They were blatant and came in an era when the league has instructed officials to make every effort to protect all quarterbacks. Independent of any tendencies, they were simply bad and inexcusable non-calls. The subsequent fines confirmed as much. I don't have any way to sugarcoat that for you, but I'll continue to study the officiating spreadsheet this season to see what other trends we turn up.

Before we get to our Challenge Tracker, I'll publish the entirety of the NFL that relates to helmet-to-helmet hits. (For those following at home, it's Rule 12, Section 2, Article 13.3.)

In covering the passer position, Referees will be particularly alert to fouls in which defenders impermissibly use the helmet and/or facemask to hit the passer, or use hands, arms, or other parts of the body to hit the passer in the head, neck, or face (see also the other unnecessary-roughness rules covering these subjects).

A defensive player must not use his facemask or other part of his helmet against a passer who is in a virtually defenseless posture -- for example, (a) forcibly hitting the passer's head, neck, or face with the helmet or facemask, regardless of whether the defensive player also uses his arms to tackle the passer by encircling or grasping him, or (b) lowering the head and violently or unnecessarily making forcible contact with the "hairline" or forehead part of the helmet against any part of the passer's body.

This rule does not prohibit incidental contact by the mask or non-crown parts of the helmet in the course of a conventional tackle on a passer. A defensive player must not "launch" himself (spring forward and upward) into a passer, or otherwise strike him in a way that causes the defensive player's helmet or facemask to forcibly strike the passer's head, neck, or face -- even if the initial contact of the defender's helmet or facemask is lower than the passer's neck.

Examples: (a) a defender buries his facemask into a passer's high chest area, but the defender's trajectory as he leaps into the passer causes the defender's helmet to strike the passer violently in the head or face; (b) a defender, using a face-on posture or with head slightly lowered, hits a passer in an area below the passer's neck, then the defender's head moves upward, resulting in strong contact by the defender's mask or helmet with the passer's head, neck, or face (one example of this is the so-called "dip-and-rip" technique).

Posted by ESPN.com’s Kevin Seifert

I’m starting to get regular requests from readers for Dirty Laundry. That’s a good thing, and I’ll do my best to expand this post as best I can. Please understand, however, that I probably won’t be able to get to every questionable/interesting call.

We’ll take a look at two calls this week, one of which is unfortunate while the other is a bit perplexing.

On the former: Some Detroit fans were upset with referee Ron Winter’s decision to penalize linebacker Julian Peterson for roughing the passer on a third down incompletion during the first quarter of last Sunday’s 17-10 loss to St. Louis.

As you might recall, the Rams were facing 3rd-and-9 at the Lions’ 27-yard line with 5:22 remaining in the first quarter. Peterson lined up as the Lions’ right defensive end and beat Rams left tackle Alex Barron around the corner. Just as quarterback Marc Bulger released the ball, Peterson reached out and hit Bugler on the top of the helmet with his right hand.

The hit wasn’t violent, but it was hard enough that Bulger’s head moved slightly. His pass fell incomplete, which would have forced placekicker Josh Brown to attempt a 46-yard field goal. But Winter immediately whistled Peterson for roughing the passer, giving the Rams a first down. Ultimately, Brown converted an easier 41-yard field goal.

Unfortunately, Peterson was just out of luck on this call. The NFL rule book warns that “referees will be particularly alert to fouls in which defenders impermissibly … use hands, arms, or other parts of the body to hit the passer in the head, neck or face.”

Peterson intended no malice but, as we discussed last month when the Lions fell victim to another weak roughing penalty, the NFL long ago decided to protect quarterbacks at all costs. Even Lions coach Jim Schwartz couldn’t argue.

“He hit him in the head,” Schwartz said. “It was a glancing blow but the rule book states you can’t hit the quarterback in the head. … That’s the definition of the rule. It’s hard on defensive players. If you go low on the quarterback you’re going to get a penalty. We had one of those a couple of weeks ago. If you go high and you hit him in the head you get a penalty. If you try to hit him in the belly and he ducks his head and you hit him in the head, it’s a penalty. It’s difficult for those guys. They just have to go play and they need to let the officials officiate. We just need to play. You hit the quarterback in the head, it’s going to be a penalty. They’re going to throw it.”

On the latter call: I received a question during Tuesday’s SportsNation chat about Minnesota’s botched snap in the first quarter of last Sunday’s game at Lambeau Field. (I didn’t address it because I wasn’t sure of the answer.) Specifically, the issue was whether Vikings quarterback Brett Favre should have been called for illegal motion because he was walking toward the line of scrimmage when center John Sullivan snapped the ball.

The NFL rulebook is pretty explicit on this issue. It reads, in part: “No player is ever permitted to be moving obliquely or directly forward toward his opponent’s goal line at the snap.”

There are no exceptions, from what I can gather. Technically, then, Tony Corrente’s crew should have called Favre for illegal motion.

We should make clear that this is nearly a moot point. Had illegal motion been called, the Packers would have declined because they recovered the ball at the Vikings’ 21-yard line. Had the Vikings recovered, the lost yardage probably would have been more than the 5 yards docked for illegal motion anyway.

Finally, here is our updated Challenge Tracker:

NFC North Challenge Tracker Team Coach Challenge Overturned Success rate Chicago Lovie Smith 7 2 28.6 Detroit Jim Schwartz 2 0 0.0 Green Bay Mike McCarthy 4 1 25.0 Minnesota Brad Childress 5 2 40.0 Source: NFL