NFL, Goodell remain silent on Saints-Rams blown call

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Photo credit USA TODAY Sports

The football world still reeling more than 24 hours after yesterday's missed pass interference and helmet-to-helmet calls in the Saints-Rams NFC Championship game.   

Nearly everyone agrees that Rams' cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman committed a blatant pass interference penalty on Saints' wide receiver Tommylee Lewis with less than two minutes to play in the game.   Saints coach Sean Payton also mentioned, in his post-game press conference, that the league confirmed to him that the officials missed that call plus what should have been a helmet-to-helmet penalty on the play as well.

While Payton may have received confirmation of the disastrous sequence of events from Al Riveron, the NFL's Vice President of Officiating, after the game, the rest of the world is still waiting for the league to say something, anything, on what is widely regarded as the worst call, or non-call, in NFL history.   That hasn't happened, and league officials remain eerily silent for reasons not really known.

The best way to give the proverbial middle finger back to the NFL after last night?Don’t watch the Super Bowl. The entire city of New Orleans, and Saints fan base, should boycott that game. A big fat 0 rating (or close to it) in NOLA will hurt the league more than any words

— Seth Dunlap (@sethdunlap) January 21, 2019

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported that the league decided against issuing a formal statement for fear of cheapening the Rams victory and ensuing celebration.  There are also reports that Riveron, commissioner Roger Goodell, and others in the league offices are still at odds on what language to use in any statement.

Frankly, the NFL can take their excuses and toss them in the Mississippi River.  The entire world watched in real time, then countless more times in slow-motion, the on-field officials decide against calling what Payton described as the most obvious pass interference call he'd ever seen.  The officials failure to do their jobs quite literally cost the Saints franchise a chance at playing in the Super Bowl in two weeks.

Not only is the league's officiating proving incompetent, so are the men and women who run this league.  Their refusal to admit this obvious, egregious error is a direct slap in the face to Payton, the Saints franchise, and their fan base.