Former NFL Refs Agree Kyle Rudolph Pushed Off on Game-Winning Touchdown
Should he have been flagged?
It wasn’t nearly as egregious as Nickell Robey-Coleman laying out Tommylee Lewis but for the second year in a row, the Saints were sent packing from the playoffs after a controversial no-call on a potential pass interference.
On a third-and-goal in overtime, Kirk Cousins found Kyle Rudolph in the back corner of the end zone to give the Vikings an upset victory, though the celebration couldn’t begin immediately because NFL officials had to review the play to see if it should be overturned for offensive pass interference.
This angle gives a clearer view of how much Rudolph pushed P.J. Williams.
Former NFL refs John Parry and Terry McAulay—now working for ESPN and NBC, respectively—both agreed that Rudolph should have been flagged for interfering with Williams.
“We looked at all of the angles that Fox afforded us, and Fox gave us some great views,” NFL head of officiating Al Riveron told a pool reporter after the game. “There is contact by both players, but none of that contact rises to the level of a foul. This is consistent with what we’ve done all year long, we left the ruling on the field. We let it stand.”
Saints fans can complain all they want but there’s no universe in which that play gets overturned on review. All year long, NFL officials have refused to overturn instances of pass interference much clearer than this one.
There’s something cruelly ironic about the Saints being screwed so badly by a play like this that the NFL instituted a rule change and then not being allowed to benefit from that rule change.
Everything about this was bizarre
Everyone knew Jason Garrett was getting fired by the Cowboys after Dallas’s Week 16 loss to the Eagles. Anyone who didn’t know realized it was definitely coming after the Cowboys missed the playoffs. And yet it took until last night for it to finally happen.
The Cowboys even made a few bucks off the news with the press release sponsored by an electronics company.
Get a load of how NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport phrased it when the news finally came down.
You gotta be kidding me with that “allowed them to do so” nonsense. You can’t consent to being kicked to the curb. But some reporters don’t want to make their subjects look weak, lest they lose a future source.
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