The New Orleans Saints-Washington Commanders game had a few calls made by officials that ultimately impacted the final score, and one such play was at the end of the third quarter. The Commanders were allowed to kick a field goal as the time on the clock was run out to zero seconds, this kick was missed, and then the officials called the quarter off and the play dead, allowing for a retry at the start of the fourth quarter.
Interim head coach Darren Rizzi had a lot to say about this decision and what he was told by the officials.
“Yeah it got totally mismanaged, so, y’know (Washington) had the diving catch, I didn’t agree with it at all, the way it was done,” Rizzi began. “So we had the diving catch, I wasn’t sure, I had the challenge flag in my hand, and I was talking to the sideline official and I’m looking at the clock and we’re discussing on the headset about, y’know, ‘Hey the quarter’s gonna end here, they’re gonna take the quarter.'”
Rizzi continued: “And I got the challenge flag in my hand trying to figure out and communicate with up top whether or not we’re gonna challenge the catch or not. And I’m talking to the official and I’m saying to him, ‘Hey I might challenge this, I might challenge this, hey the quarter’s over, the quarter’s over, the quarter’s over, the quarter’s over, the quarter’s over,’ for about four or five seconds. They let they play go, he misses the field goal.”
What happened next shocked him. Rizzi could only protest the do-over and watch as referee Shawn Hochuli’s crew let the Commanders try another kick after missing the first try.
“So whoever’s in charge of shutting the play down, they obviously let the play go on. And so the explanation I got is it’s a replay-assist situation, the play shouldn’t have been run because the clocks were at zero, the clocks were at zero, their clocks were definitely at zero, the quarter was over. But the officials missed that, and that’s why the play was allowed to go on. That’s where my gripe is: The play should not have been allowed to go on, they gave the field goal kicker basically a freebie, they gave him the mis-hit, and so …” Rizzi trailed off.
It was something he’d never seen before in decades of coaching. And that led Rizzi to level some strong criticism at the officiating crew for how they handled the situation.
“I’ve been coaching kickers for 30 years. You give a guy a warmup shot, he’s got a pretty good shot of making the second one. The success rate goes through the roof when the guy gets a second chance, so that’s where my gripe was, is that it was a management,” Rizzi said, pausing for breath, “Game management from the officials, operations, I’ll let the league handle it, but I hope that everybody else gets held accountable in this league. I hope that the people that mismanaged that get held accountable too because it was completely mishandled.”
Ultimately the Saints would go on to lose 20-19, and this was a critical point in the game as neither team particularly scored well at one point or another, so any points were hard to come by for both sides. Rizzi clearly was upset with the decision, and we will see what happens when the review comes in regarding what calls could have been made or not made.
