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Saints President Dennis Lauscha, reacting to an error by officials in Monday night’s Texans/Saints game, said officiating is crucial to the integrity of any sports league. “We have to get it fixed,” said Lauscha. He made his comments Tuesday at the weekly meeting of the New Orleans quarterback club at Rock N’Bowl. The Saints president parsed his words carefully when he spoke of a late second quarter call that cost the Saints precious seconds. The half ended with kicker Wil Lutz missing a 56 yard field goal, wide left. With 48 seconds remaining, playing a third and 17, Drew Brees threw 16 yards to Michael Thomas. Thomas was originally ruled past the line of gain for a first down. But, a booth replay reversed the call.
The NFL admitted that 41 seconds should have been put on the clock. Supervisor of officials Al Riveron told pool reporter Larry Holder of the Athletic the following. “After we did our administrative duties, we should have reset the clock to 41 second because that’s when we blew the play dead. At the time, we should have gone to coach Payton and asked him if he wanted to take a timeout in lieu of a 10 second runoff. Instead of setting the clock to 41, we inadvertently set it to 26 and then had a 10 second runoff because he didn’t want to take the time out. Again we should have reset it to 41, not 26, and then ultimately to 31 after the 10 second runoff.”