Bill Vinovich

I'm with you. Those were two horrible calls. There's no doubt that when the NFL reviewed the way this game was officiated (particularly at the end) they realized that the appearance would be one of favoritism being shown due to these crucial non-calls.

But the way I see it, of all the games each year the ones that generally are under-officiated are the postseason games. The NFL would much prefer that a playoff contest is decided by the performance of the two teams rather than making possibly marginal calls that could ultimately decide the outcome.

In fact this is one reason why those two no-calls are easier for me to deal with. There is obviously a mandate by the NFL to try their best to let the teams play without 'ref interference' for determining a winner. If it was the other way around and the officials were being asked to look for every possible foul, then there would be far more questioning of the league being unbiased... especially if one team happened to be very undisciplined that day.

Both the OFI against Lewis & the face whack on Drew were egregious penalties that were of such severity that these should have been called. Sadly these were not; to our demise. But as I recall there were fouls that the Saints players made during the game which were not called as well. This just proves that the officials were trying their best to stay out of the game, particularly in the latter moments when the impact of penalties would likely have had a greater impact on the outcome. However with the officials remaining silent, it basically had the same effect to the outcome that the NFL obviously tries to avoid.

Any post-game review by the league with the officials would likely have been geared toward having the proper degree of officiating in order to avoid the same type of criticism among all of the fan bases that this one still has to this day. Every NFL fan around the country knows the Saints got hosed with those 'no-calls'. But this is the only fan base that still can't understand why the officials were trying not to be 'flag-happy' for an NFC Championship game. It's a whole lot easier just to vilify the captain of that crew then to realize that those officials screwed up in not seeing/calling some very critical fouls when it affected the Saints the most.
It was the most blatant PI in the history of the NFL. Regardless of what YOU say or THINK cannot justify that screw job. TLL went into a helicopter spin. Save the “officials were trying to stay out of it” madness. Sure, refs tend to call playoff games a bit looser than the regular season, but that call NEEDS and SHOULD be called 100% of the time regardless of what game it is. You say it’s nothing, I say screw job. Officials can sway or influence outcomes. That is 100% fact. It happens in all sports. That Hockey official just last year was caught saying how he was calling against a certain team, while on a hot mic😆.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sp...hot-mic-makeup-call/zicliicfz25k173ndmtxowl28
NSWF in that link. He instantly went for a screw job in the beginning portion of the match to set the tone. Now, tell me that the NFL officials are squeaky clean? Are they more righteous than Hockey refs? And don’t even get me started on NBA refs.