Magnum P.I.
Obvious pass interference call missed, and both NFL and Rams DB don’t deny it
NEW ORLEANS — Nickell Robey-Coleman admits it. He’s guilty as charged.
Just as the NFL admitted to the New Orleans Saints head coach afterward.
The Los Angeles cornerback said afterward he committed pass interference on a crucial no-call late in the Rams’ 26-23 overtime win Sunday in the NFC championship game.
In these parts, you’d better believe, mister, they’ll be grousing about that no-call for generations. And rightly so.
It might well go down as the worst non-call of obvious pass interference in NFL history. And Robey-Coleman admitted as much in a postgame locker-room interview with Postmedia and a few other reporters.
With the score tied 20-20 and 1:49 left in the NFC championship game, the host New Orleans Saints faced third-and-10 from the Rams’ 13-yard line.
Saints quarterback Drew Brees threw accurately toward open receiver Tommylee Lewis at the right sideline, the Saints’ sideline. But a fastcharging Robey-Coleman slammed hard into Lewis, well before the ball arrived.
Obvious pass interference, right?
Nope.
Nearly all of the 73,028 who packed the Mercedes-Benz Superdome went crazy — and crazier still when the replay was shown on the large video screens.
Saints head coach Sean Payton ran down to that spot, pleading his team’s case, to no avail.
The Saints then kicked a field goal to go up 23-20, but the Rams came back to tie it just before regulation, then won in overtime, 26-23.
Payton opened his news conference by saying it’s “a disappointing way to lose a game. It’s frustrating. (I’m) just getting off the phone with the league office. They blew the call ... a game-changing call.
“The (Rams) kicker made some big kicks. But for a call like that not to be made. Man, it’s just hard to swallow. And then to get a phone call.”
Asked to elaborate about the call from the NFL, Payton said:
“It was simple. They blew the call … They said not only was it interference, it was helmet-to-helmet.”
To be clear, Payton said Al Riveron, the NFL’s senior VP of officiating, told him on the phone that “they messed it up.”
In an interview afterward with a pool reporter, game referee Bill Vinovich said: “It was a judgment call by the covering official. I personally have not seen the play.”
Robey-Coleman, a sixthyear pro who normally plays slot corner, explained everything he saw and did, from his perspective. In short, he said he did it.
Furthermore, Robey Coleman said officials let the game get out of hand, to become “dirty” by the fourth quarter and overtime.
“I was just trying to make a play,” said Robey-Coleman, who played his first four NFL seasons in Buffalo with the Bills, before signing in L.A. “I seen an open man, and I was just trying to make a play. I see his hands go up and I hit him. I felt like I was saving a touchdown rather than trying to just make a play, you know?
Asked specifically if he felt he arrived and hit Lewis too early, Robey-Coleman answered:
“Yes. I probably got there too early. To be so far behind of where I was – I was on the other side of the hash. I came over and hit him … It was just a situation where I couldn’t think about it … I just had to go to the man and just hit him. And I felt like if I would have hit him, then maybe it would have been a bang-bang play, maybe it would have been a situation where they had to make a hard decision to call it if it is PI or not.”
Asked later to readdress the above play, he said:
“I knew in my mind that (Lewis) was wide open. And Drew Brees? Come on. Drew Brees or Tom Brady, with an open person? He’s going to hit him. That’s (as good as) a catch. So I’m thinking I don’t really have time to look back, because if I look back the ball might be completed while I’m looking back. So I was just like, my best chance is just to (smacks one hand into another) smash him.”
Did he look for flags immediately afterward?
“Yeah. I did,” the 27-yearold. “As soon as I hit the ground and got up, I was looking for laundry, you’re right. I was! I had to! It was natural, because I knew I was … wrong.”
Robey-Coleman wasn’t done with his frank comments. Asked if officiating late in the game had got out of hand, he said the following:
“Yeah. There was some things going on out there. And the refs were letting us play. Even in the blocking game, in the running game on the perimeter, it was scrappy out there. They was letting us do our thing for the most part. They were letting the offence get away with some things, and they were letting the defence get away with some things.
“When we knew how physical they were letting us be, that’s when we came in the fourth quarter and overtime, and that’s when we got extra physical.
“I was down there and I was getting dirty. I was getting dirty tonight. And they was getting dirty too. When I’m looking from the sideline on their defence, they was getting dirty too.”
Yeah, so not the best officiated game in NFL history.
For a call like that not to be made. Man, it’s just hard to swallow ... It was simple. They blew the call. Saints coach Sean Payton