What happened near the end of the NFC Championship Game on Sunday afternoon was inexcusable and extremely difficult for New Orleans Saints fans to stomach.
With less than two minutes to go, and the Los Angeles Rams down to one timeout, the officials in charge of calling the game missed a blatant pass interference penalty which would have basically ended the game with the Saints winning.
“Just getting off the phone with the league office. They blew the call,” Saints head coach Sean Payton said following the loss. “Man, there were a lot of opportunities though, but that call puts it first-and-10 and we’d only need three plays. It’s a game-changing call. That’s where it’s at, so it’s disappointing. For a call like that not to be made, it’s just hard to swallow.”
If the Saints weren’t able to gain a first down and run the clock out, they could have kicked a short field goal and left LA with less than 10 seconds left in regulation.
Instead, LA got the ball back and drove in 1:26 for a field goal of their own, to send the game into overtime. The Rams ended up winning, leaving Saints fans wondering what could have been as they missed out on their second Super Bowl appearance.
That missed call — which was clear as day pass interference — leaves many hoping the NFL will change its rules to allow penalties to be reviewed. However, multiple people connected with the game say it won’t happen.
Steve Wyche of NFL Network believes the fact it wasn’t called in the first place makes it difficult to see a solution where the league would open the doors to every non-call being open to review.
For the question/concern about PI penalties being reviewable, even if so, it would not have applied in Rams-Saints game because no penalty was called. It would be very tough to see any change that would allow a non-call to be changed to a penalty upon review.
— Steve Wyche (@wyche89) January 22, 2019
Imagine a play in which a cornerback and wide receiver are hand fighting, the ball falls incomplete, no penalty was called as the two were simply playing football and jostling for position. The offensive team’s coach wants to challenge the non-call, stopping the game and slowing down progress. After review, it’s determined to be no call and the coach has burned a challenge and timeout.
If an official isn’t calling it a penalty on the field, it seems highly unlikely they would after looking at the review, and it’s even more unlikely the league would open up replay to this degree.
John Elway, who’s on the NFL’s Competition Committee, agrees it won’t happen:
NFL competition committee member John Elway on possibility league would expand relay to include pass interference: “You can’t replay every pass interference. It won’t work,” Elway said.
— Lindsay Jones (@bylindsayhjones) January 22, 2019
And one more member of the league, Atlanta Falcons President Rich McKay, doesn’t think the league will make a change in opening up replay to non-calls, either.
As he explained via Pro Football Talk, that would open up the possibility of the officials finding a holding call during that play, or other penalties as well.
“All of those things need to be talked about,” McKay said. “It doesn’t mean it’s not possible, but it does mean that you need to figure out exactly how you’d implement and not impact the game negatively.”
The simple answer here is a need for better on-field officiating, not to lean more heavily on instant replay. However, if the league wants to go to a more replayed game, they could implement a system like college football has for targeting, where the referee is buzzed from a replay official to stop play.
That would be a fundamental shift in the way NFL games are officiated, but if it solves issues like what we saw on Sunday — in one of the most important games of the year — wouldn’t that change be worth it?