LOS ANGELES — The National Football League was facing up to its latest controversy on Monday after an egregious non-call by referees during the NFC championship game likely robbed the New Orleans Saints of a Super Bowl berth.
The missed pass interference call that denied the Saints a chance to run down the clock and kick a game-winning field goal comes at the tail-end of a season that began with NFL players’ anthem protests.
“REFFING UNBELIEVABLE,” screamed the front page headline of New Orleans’ Times-Picayune newspaper on Monday in reference to Sunday’s officiating blunder that many in the American football world consider one of the worst no-calls in NFL history.
Even an electronic highway sign above the Pontchartrain Causeway outside New Orleans was changed after the National Football Conference championship game to read: “We Were Robbed.”
The controversy started when Los Angeles cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman barreled into Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis with a helmet-to-helmet hit well before the pass arrived inside the Rams’ 5-yard line.
Had the penalty been called, the Saints would have had a first-and-goal situation with under two minutes left and could have run out almost all of the clock and set up a game-winning field goal.
But the Saints instead kicked a field goal and the Rams had enough time to tie the game with a field goal of their own before going on to win the game 26-23 in overtime. — Reuters
