They might have a point.
Honestly, this kind of scenario felt inevitable: The New Orleans Saints’ season coming down to a now-reviewable, pass interference no-call.
It was always going to end that way.
The Minnesota Vikings defeated the Saints, 26-20, in overtime of Sunday’s NFC Wild Card matchup in New Orleans. And of course, the game-winning touchdown catch from Kyle Rudolph immediately came under scrutiny from Saints fans. It appeared that Rudolph extended his arm and pushed off on P.J. Williams as he hauled in the pass from Kirk Cousins.
There was no pass interference call on the field, and the officials opted to not even review the potential penalty.
The league made pass interference a reviewable play after the Saints-Rams debacle in the NFC Championship Game, but throughout the season, the league held an excessively high standard to overturn pass-interference calls/no-calls. It was unlikely that a review would have changed the result, but Saints fans (and other NFL fans) certainly thought that pass interference should have been called on Rudolph.
The Saints will now have an entire offseason to complain about officiating, so there’s that.
