The refs were late in blowing the play dead, so the New Orleans Saints kept playing.
Devonta Smith was being held up by defenders when rookie Khristian Boyd came flying in with his shoulder. The blow knocked the Eagles WR's head forward and he went down in a heap, ultimately leaving the game as he was checked for a concussion.
The cries of "dirty play" were loud, so much so that Boyd and Saints DE Payton Turner -- who dived near Smith to recover the ball and was accused of spitting on Smith as he lay on the ground -- took to social media to defend themselves.
"Y'all reaching I wouldn't ever do sum like that," Turner posted on his X account. with a clown face emoji. It was Turner's first post on X since late June. It's clear on the video that Turner did spit on the field, a common practice for NFL players, but he did so where he stood up to the right of where Smith was down on the ground.
Boyd took to his Instagram story to clear the air.
"I would never deliberately try to give someone a serious injury," he wrote." Just tried to make a play on the ball. Get well 6."
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The noise was so loud that head coach Dennis Allen was asked about it in his Monday press conference.
"I’d say our guys play extremely hard and we’re gonna compete, you know, until the down is over," Allen said. "I don’t think we played dirty. I don’t think we ever have played dirty. It’s not the way we coach it. It’s not the way we teach it, but we do play hard. Look, nobody wants to see anybody get hurt and nobody is trying to hurt anybody, and unfortunately that’s part of the business that we’re in, but no, we don’t play dirty, we don’t coach dirty, but we do play hard and we do play physical.”
The hit on Smith didn't draw any flags, but officials did rule his forward progress had been stopped and that's why the play was not ruled a fumble after the ball came out.
There was one other play that caught the ire of Eagles fans, and it occurred early in the Saints' lone touchdown drive of the day when Saints RT Trevor Penning, who has a reputation for playing to the echo of the echo of the whistle, blocked Eagles DB Darius Slay well into the Saints' bench area. Slay was down hurt for a short while with Nick Sirianni coming all the way across the field and tensions flaring among the players.
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Penning was penalized after the Saints' first down, a costly setback that ultimately didn't impact anything with Derek Carr finding Chris Olave in the end zone a few plays later. Allen was less understanding of that situation.
"We can’t have that," Allen said. "I mean, look, you’ve got to have some awareness of where you’re at on the field and that could’ve been a really costly penalty. I love the aggressiveness, but at the same time, you know, we can’t hurt our team.”
We'll have to wait until later in the week to determine whether any plays in the game merited a fine. Former Saints DB C.J. Gardner-Johnson had a few hard hits himself, most notably a tackle early in the game where he flung Saints RB Alvin Kamara well into the Saints' bench. The testiness continued throughout the game and we saw Tyrann Mathieu and Marshon Lattimore engaged in some heated arguments in the final minutes of the game over by the Eagles' sideline. There's clearly not a whole lot of love lost between these two teams, to say the least.
“It’s an intense game. ... Obviously me and Latt, we should never go to those guys’ sidelines," Mathieu said. "So we’ll learn from that but it happens to all of us, emotions kind of get the best of us, but didn’t really hear much from those guys all game until they went up at the end, so just be looking forward to playing against those guys again, hopefully.”