Gary Sheffield, Jr
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Saints receiver Emmanuel Sanders joined Uninterrupted this week and shared his frustration with NFL officiating. He hinted at an anti-Saints bias amongst officials, a theory strongly supported by the infamous non-call for pass interference that cost the Saints an NFC Championship in 2019.
Emmanuel Sanders said he’s never seen games officiated the way Saints games are officiated on UNINTERRUPTED’s ‘17 Weeks’ Podcast on SiriusXM/Pandora pic.twitter.com/62Q2loDOG5
— Nick Underhill (@nick_underhill) October 1, 2020
“I’ve never seen the calls that they make and then the calls that we don’t get, you know.”
No, we don’t know because the New Orleans Saints have never had the luxury of relying on the zebras. Some teams may just have incredibly bad luck, but perhaps others have done something to anger the officials. It’s possible that Sean Payton’s past complaints about officiating have caused the calls the Saints see today.
#Saints coach Sean Payton referenced it post-game: Senior VP of Officiating Al Riveron did, in fact, acknowledge the missed call vs the #Rams to Payton. The NFL admitted its error — the call should have been have defensive pass interference, source said.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 21, 2019
Most NFL head coaches will at least pretend to tolerate league mistakes, but not Payton. He issues strong criticisms and demands that the league fix mistakes immediately, a move that surely ruffles some feathers. These officials are humans after all, and their own attitudes could be getting in the way.
The Saints come into the weekend as the third-most penalized team in the NFL, behind only the Jets and Cardinals, two young teams with at least a plausible excuse for their lack of discipline. The Saints, on the other hand, have no logical explanation for the miscues. A 43-year-old Drew Brees is leading the third most undisciplined team in the NFL?
Highly doubtful.
What’s the long game?
We saw in this year’s NBA playoffs that the Lakers complained about a lack of calls, then proceeded to lead the playoffs in free throw attempts. Sometimes complaining draws attention to things that need fixing. Whether those arguments are warranted or not isn’t important, but it’s possible that Payton’s complaints could challenge officials to throw the Saints a bone on Sunday.
NFL officials are under intense scrutiny. They already have thick skin and likely won’t fold to social media pressure. We would assume Sanders will be fined for his statements, but hopefully he won’t have spent that money in vain.
The Cowboys and Saints both get glaring bad calls for whatever reason.
This will be a bad look for the NFL if things don’t even out by season’s end.
The Saints need to quit whining and stat playing.