Tag Archives: New Orleans Saints

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Not getting too worked up over this missed call

I have to stipulate up front that I might feel differently if I lived in the city that is home to a pro football team that got the shaft in the biggest game of the year . . . to date.

I don’t, so I’m not going to get all that lathered up over what happened this past weekend to the New Orleans Saints in their NFC championship game against the Los Angeles Rams.

You know what I’m talking about.

The Saints were marching down the field. NOLA Quarterback Drew Brees took the snap at the Rams’ 13-yard line and threw a pass to TommyLee Lewis; Rams safety Nickell Roby-Colman mugged Lewis while the receiver tried to catch the ball. The official didn’t call pass interference or the helmet-to-helmet hit that occurred. The pass fell incomplete. The score was 20-20 at the time. Both teams kicked field goals in regulation, but the Rams won it in overtime. Had the field judge called the play correctly, the Saints could have scored to go ahead in the final seconds and won the game, yes?

I have listened to extensive commentary on this mess. Yes, it’s a mess. One official committed a disastrous non-call on what looked to the entire football game-watching world like pass interference. Some sports pundits talked on NPR about theories of conspiracy, the possibility that the “fix was in.” Sheesh!

Why not get too worked up?

Because the official is a fallible human being, just like all the rest of us. Fallible creatures make mistakes. That’s how it goes, man.

Look, I’m not even a fan of instant replay, or “official review” of these calls. I don’t hate them the way I hate the designated hitter in pro baseball, but I just wish we could rely on human beings to make the best calls they can in the heat of competition.

Besides, when you consider all the calls these folks make during the course of a 60-minute professional football game, I remain mightily impressed with the overwhelming number of correct decisions they make.

Would I feel differently if I lived in New Orleans and saw this play? Would I spit my gumbo out if I watched the official fail to make the obvious call?

That’s a hypothetical question, but yeah, I probably would go ballistic. However, I have no particular interest in the NFC championship game, other than wanting the Saints to win. They lost.

Besides, if the Saints were the better team that day in the Superdome, they should have put the game away in front of the raucous Big Easy crowd.

Now, let’s just get ready for the Super Bowl.

Sports news

Patriots vs. Rams: not the preferred matchup, however . . .

OK, here we go again. The New England Patriots are going to play for their umpteenth Super Bowl championship against the Los Angeles Rams.

This wasn’t the matchup I wanted. I already declared my desire to see the Kansas City Chiefs win the whole thing. They were long overdue for another trip to the Big Game; their latest Super Bowl was in 1970, when they beat — while still representing the former American Football League — the heavily favored Minnesota Vikings 23-7.

I remain a diehard American Football Conference fan, so I’ll root (more or less) for the Patriots against the Rams.

The LA Rams last played in the Super Bowl in 1980 when they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, the St. Louis Rams defeated the Tennessee Titans in 2000. So the franchise is a recent participant in the big game. So now the Rams, who have returned to La La Land, are back.

I didn’t predict the Chiefs would take it all home. It was merely my stated preference.

However, having said that, I have to declare that the AFC championship game was incredibly well played, given the utterly frigid temperatures the players endured on the field at Arrowhead Stadium.

As for the NFC game, I’ll merely say that the refs stole that game from the New Orleans Saints with that remarkably hideous non-call on pass interference.

They shoulda called the cops.