During the Bills v. Steelers game, there seemed to be a couple of plays where the on-field ref was getting communications from somewhere. TV showed him standing there listening and pressing his hand against his earpiece (he had a hat on so it was not possible to tell).
I don't know who he was listening to. I would think it would be New York, but there's no way to know. In both cases it was a judgment call and in both cases the communication appeared to be happening before they made the call. In one case, there was an uncatchable ball and they threw a flag on the field. The ball was headed in the direction of the player that was grabbed. They called holding, which seemed pretty close -- it certainly did look as though the foul occurred while the ball was in the air but I guess it could have gone either way. I don't remember what the second call was. But it was also a judgment call kind of thing.
The rules, as I understand them, are set up very formally. They require a call on the field. If the play is reviewable, then a review is conducted, either initiated by the booth or by a coach depending on the time in the game. The play on the field gets deference, with various levels of proof articulated depending on who says it. Separate from that, there are eye-in-the-sky procedures, where there can be an abbreviated review to check for certain objective measurement kinds of things. Again, my understanding is this is set out by rule -- usually catch no catch or line to gain.
Having New York provide information to refs on judgment calls before they announce the call on the field, if that's what is happening, strikes me as highly problematic. Yes, we want to get the calls right. But that's simply officiating by booth. Most important, they are not being at all transparent about it. We should understand what is being said. For example, if New York was giving input on whether the ball was thrown before contact to permit the refs to call holding instead of PI on an uncatchable ball, that's not consistent with what I understand the rules to be. The temptation is to say that if they got it right, who cares, but the problem is consistency. The rules -- including the reply rules -- need to be clear before the game starts, or else you just have a league that is making it up as it goes.