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Al Riveron was left to clean up another officiating snafu at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome Monday night. This time, at least, it didn’t cost the Saints a game – or a trip to the Super Bowl.

Drew Brees was furious. Sean Payton was rather calm. And Cam Jordan waxed philosophical, after the officials in Monday night’s 30-28 Saints victory over the Texans saw yet another half end with fans, media members and Saints coaches and players confused about what appeared, at least on the surface, to be a fairly simple call to make when broken down.



After the Houston extended its lead to 14-3 with just under two minutes left before halftime, New Orleans found themselves facing 3rd-and-17 from their own 30-yard-line with 48 seconds to go, trying to muster some amount of offensive momentum after two early stalled red zone drives. Brees found Thomas fending off Bradley Roby on the sideline right around the first-down marker and fired a dart into his mitts, before Thomas fell toward the sideline and stretched the ball toward the marker, giving the officials their first in a series of decisions to make.

Initially, the refs decided he was inches short, sending Brees storming to the line with one timeout left and close to 30 seconds to go to attempt a quarterback sneak. But the refs whistled him off to look at the spot 15 seconds after the play was ruled dead.

“But it shouldn’t have been a booth review. It was pretty obvious he made the yards to gain,” said Saints head coach Sean Payton. “We would always move the chains in the past.”

Once the refs emerged from the hood, things got much – much – more complicated. Officials deemed Thomas had cleared the first-down marker, but because play was stopped with the clock rolling, head referee John Hussey ruled the Saints must either forfeit their final timeout, or surrender 10 seconds off the clock – from the current 0:26 mark, rather than at 0:41 when the play was complete.

That’s where Riveron, the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating, comes in once again.

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Crusader

I was watching the game together with my brother-in-law and we were livid. I probably woke the neighbours up cursing and yelling!

Like Brees said, that can't happen, its a game changer.

nola_swammi

lets get'em back in court

vpheughan

You'd think after the "Non Call" the NFL would be on top of officiating yet it did and will continue to happen. Admitting you made an error does nothing. It's the NFL version of "I didn't know it was loaded"

Crusader

I think the ref was loaded...

K Major

Luckily we are able to win the game, however the NFL cannot continue with this. There is no way you can mess up the clock before halftime and cost our team a legit field goal opportunity & you can't call that bogus "roughing" in that spot. It's just a bad, bad look.

I agree with coach, it's a game changer that can't happen.

papz

What's the point of having replay if the people reviewing the replay are incompetent? There needs to be more accountability.

It's really sad.

Cruize

I missed the exact time thing as well. Was so livid about the 10 second run off. I REALLY dislike the rule on how the clock isn't stopped if a player is going backwards out of bounds or is deemed to be stopped in the field of play. If a player is able to get out of bounds on his feet, the clock should stop.

RockyMountainSaint

I told my wife at the time that they were making s*** up as they went because they were lost.
It is reflective of our society.
See a problem?
Create a rule to eliminate the problem, regardless of effectiveness.
The problem comes when there are so many rules that no one really knows what is going on and how to proceed.

RockyMountainSaint

League officials should be full time employees.
Mandate their participation in post-game interviews and press confrences.
The NFL has the loot to make this happen.