This is just horrible.
The NFC Championship game provided us with one of the most egregious missed calls during a game of that magnitude that most certainly changed the outcome and legacies.
The NFL officiating crew that worked the NFC championship game were reportedly moved from one hotel to another after New Orleans Saints fans wouldn’t let the outcome go and began harassing them. They were being harassed not only by phone, but in person as well, according to Post Media.
According to multiple witnesses, who agreed to share what they saw and learned in exchange for anonymity, a half-dozen or more yellow-jacketed event security staff, plus NFL security personnel as well as at least one local law-enforcement officer, escorted the game officials off a bus and to the front desk of the second hotel, to check in.
There, in an otherwise near empty lobby, one game official (not referee Bill Vinovich) continually received harassing cellphone calls, multiple witnesses told Postmedia, including a hotel guest from San Antonio.
Finally, a sheriff officer took the cellphone from the beleaguered official and ordered the caller to cease, or face prosecution.
The guest from San Antonio said a friend of his, who accompanied him to New Orleans, saw what appeared to be two plainclothes security guards stationed outside a room on the hotel’s fifth floor, throughout the night. Another witness confirmed this.
All of the officials that worked the game were able to check out of the hotel without incident the following day.
The crew has been under fire since none of them threw a flag to call an obvious pass interference on Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman who admitted after the game that he had got their early to prevent a touchdown and was shocked to see no flag was thrown.
That decision left enough time for the Rams to tie the game and then win it in overtime, sending them straight to the Super Bowl.
