Saints owner will pursue changes in NFL policies

Saints owner Gayle Benson says she pledges to aggressively pursue changes in NFL policies that will promote more “fairness and integrity.”

Benson says it’s clear the Saints were “unfairly deprived” of a trip to the Super Bowl by the inaction of game officials “charged with creating a fair and equitable playing field.”

The Saints owner is referring to officials’ decision not to call a penalty on Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman for his early and helmet-tohelmet hit on Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis while quarterback Drew Brees’ third-down pass was still in the air.

A penalty would have given the Saints a first down inside the Rams’ 10-yard line with about 1:45 left and allowed New Orleans to run out most of the remaining time left before trying a go-ahead field goal.

Instead, about 1:41 remained when the Saints took their last lead, and the Rams came back to win in overtime.

Benson has been the sole owner of the Saints since her husband, Tom, died last March. which hosted games in 2016 and 2017. The Rams and Kansas City were to have played there Nov. 19 but the game was moved to Los Angeles because of poor field conditions.

In London, the NFC champion Los Angeles Rams will play Cincinnati. The other games are Houston-Jacksonville, CarolinaTampa Bay and ChicagoOakland.

Jacksonville is owned by Shahid Khan, who also owns the Premier League club Fulham.

Ratings: Sunday night’s game between the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs was the second-most watched and rated AFC championship Game in 42 years.

The overtime thriller on CBS averaged 53.219 million viewers, just shy of the 54.850 million that viewed Pittsburgh’s victory over the New York Jets in 2011. The 27.5 household rating fell short of the 2016 matchup between New England and Denver that had a 29.3 rating.

Titans: Mike Vrabel has stayed inside the organization for his new offensive coordinator, promoting tight ends assistant Arthur Smith to the job vacated when Matt LaFleur left for the Green Bay Packers’ head-coaching job.

This is the first time for Smith as a coordinator, and he will be the fourth different coordinator and fifth play-caller for Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota going into his fifth NFL season in 2019. Keeping Smith allows Vrabel and the Titans to limit the changes in a season where they have to decide on Mariota’s future.