The two deserving teams (I have no dog in this hunt) will be sitting at home next weekend. Some highly suspicious calls were made or not made to tip the scales heavily in favor of the SB participants.
I don't think there is a watershed moment, but more of a slow, creeping abasement of the sport.
The league thrives whether its an accurate version of the game its intended to represent or not.
Goodell and all the owners know this and pull the strings accordingly.
I stopped caring.
which he says he thought he heard a ref say the word "tipped", as if the ref thought the ball was tipped (which would negate any such penalty).
That said, King Roger will have to address it this week.
the tip ball motion on that sideline that a ref needs to make when eating their flag for that reason. Neither seemed to offer that as a reason to Payton. Inside the NFL has a very good angle of the ref who was around the 15 yard line, after contact he reaches down for his flag and hesitates and in my interpretation looks to see if the guy on the goal line is throwing his flag. I have little doubt that if he saw that guy throwing a flag he would have followed his instinct and thrown his too. I think he choked and didn't trust what he saw because he was a afraid of being on an island on a call that decided a Super Bowl berth.
case that the ball was tipped and he also states that if the Saints had the ability to throw a challenge flag on the non-call, the play would have still been negated because he states that there were two penalties on the Saints on that play that were also missed by the refs.
See link below for more details.
a penalty in the NFL?
called during the game (for whatever reason).