ARLINGTON, Texas — Referee Pete Morelli found himself with a bad case of foot-in-mouth during Sunday’s NFC wild-card game between the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys.

Morelli seemingly confirmed back judge Lee Dyer’s pass-interference call on Cowboys linebacker Anthony Hitchens on a crucial third-and-1 by announcing it publicly to the more than 91,000 spectators at AT&T Stadium and a national television audience.

Then Morelli and the crew curiously decided to reassess the call, eventually overturning it, which forced a Lions punt on fourth down.

Morelli said after the game that the head linesman had the best angle the play and believed the contact between Hitchens, who was faceguarding tight end Brandon Pettigrew on the play and never looked back at the ball, was minimal.

Unlike in college, face-guarding is not a penalty in the NFL.

“Probably, yes,” Morelli said when asked if he should have waited before announcing the call. “The information came and then the officials got together a little bit later, after it was given to me. It would have probably been smoother if we got together.”

Part of the problem likely stemmed from the crew working together for the first time. Playoff officials are selected individually based on the best grades and then put into crews rather than the best-graded crews being selected.

FOX analyst Mike Pereira, a former NFL head of officiating, told his audience that he disagreed with the call reversal.

“That’s pass interference — and actually it was defensive holding also. Pettigrew had his jersey grabbed and ripped at the line of scrimmage,” Pereira said. “The Cowboys caught a huge, huge break.”

What did Morelli see?

“It’s not my responsibility,” the referee said. “I’m a hundred miles away.”

Not surprisingly, the partisan Lions and Cowboys had as differing perspectives as Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones: “That was a judgment call. We didn’t necessarily think that was a pass-interference call when they called it.”

Said coach Jim Caldwell on the explanation he was given: “Not good enough. Not good enough. … I’m going to leave it at that.”

–The Cowboys opted to go for it on fourth-and-6 at the Detroit 42 on the eventual game-winning drive rather than punt with six minutes left in the game. Quarterback Tony Romo kept the drive alive by hitting tight end Jason Witten on a curl route for 21 yards.

“I give credit to Coach (Jason) Garrett for making that call and going to try to win the football game at that point,” Romo said.

Garrett said, “You can punt and then try to get a stop, or you can say, ‘OK, let’s go get this done right now.’ A lot of belief in the offensive unit, a lot of belief in the quarterback and the weapons around him.”

Jones said he believed Garrett made the right call by going for it.

–Detroit faced a similar situation on fourth-and-1 at the 8:18 mark after the controversial third-and-1. Lions coach Jim Caldwell left the offense out and lined up to try to get the Cowboys to jump and draw a penalty. When they ploy failed, Detroit punted, deciding to put the team’s fortunes on its stout defense.

One problem: Instead of pinning the Cowboys deep, Sam Martin’s punt traveled only 10 yards.

“Thought about it,” Caldwell said of going for it. “Obviously, you look at the result of the punt, you look at it a little differently. We thought about it in that situation, but we were up, we weren’t behind. Our defense had been pretty stingy, you know?”

–Detroit nose tackle Ndamukong Suh grew emotional during a postgame media session, at one point so overcome that he walked away from the podium. Suh, an All-Pro who will become a free agent this offseason, might have played his last game with the Lions. Suh asked that out of respect for his teammates, questions be limited to the game.

“I apologize, I’m just speechless,” Suh said after returning to the podium. “I feel like we played as hard as we could. We put it all out there. I just didn’t expect this outcome. It’s sickening.”

–Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray, the NFL’s leading rusher, was held to 75 yards on 19 carries against Detroit, the top-ranked run defense in the league. He had a long of 18 yards and rushed for a 1-yard touchdown in the third quarter on fourth down.

“Obviously, they’ve got a good defensive line,” Murray said. “There were 10 guys in the box all night. But I thought we found some lanes and we … ran hard.”

–Cowboys middle linebacker Rolando McClain left the game with concussion symptoms in the first half. Team officials initially said his exit was caused by dehydration but corrected the diagnosis after the game. McClain did not make the trip to Washington, D.C., for the Cowboys’ regular-season finale because of an illness.

“We’ll continue to monitor him,” Garrett said.