While the blood boils in the bayou over the no-call that altered the end of the New Orleans Saints' overtime loss to Los Angeles, the Rams gleefully skip to Super Bowl LIII.
Asked about the missed pass interference call on corner Nickell Robey-Coleman, Rams coach Sean McVay said teams can only control what they can control in an "imperfect game."
"The one thing that I think is when you slow it down, clearly you can see some of the things that took place," McVay said Monday, via the team's official transcript. "I think that if you want to do that on every single play though there's a lot of instances. You want to slow some different things down, with a face mask on (QB Jared) Goff, on some different things. What we try to do a good job of is understand that it's an imperfect game.
"I feel bad for when it occurred in the framework of the game, but I thought (Saints head coach) Sean (Payton) said it best too where, there's a lot of other opportunities and there's a lot of things that do dictate and determine the outcome of the game. Whatever happens after that, if it is called differently, you just never know. All we can do is control what we can control, and in a lot of instances those things are out of our control. One of the things that I've loved about our team is whether we feel like a call works in our favor or against it, they just keep competing, eyes up, next play mindset and mentality. I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I did think it was a bang-bang play after the game. But when you slow it down, I'm not going to sit here and say there clearly wasn't a little bit of contact before that ball actually arrived. But whether he catches it or not, there's a lot of things that go into that. That one did work in our favor, but there were a couple instances where it didn't, and we can't control those things."
If the penalty had been called, the Saints would have had the ball with a first down and 1:45 left on the clock. New Orleans could have run the time under 20 seconds before kicking the go-ahead field goal. Instead, L.A. got the ball back with 1:41 left and proceeded to drive for the field goal that forced overtime.
McVay is correct in noting his team took advantage of the officiating error. Goff drove the Rams down for the game-tying field goal with several gorgeous plays. Dante Fowler then wrecked Drew Brees, forcing an interception from John Johnson and setting up Greg Zuerlein's 57-yard game-winning field goal. If any of those players don't make plays, perhaps the penalty would be an afterthought.
If the flag had been thrown, however, none of those outcomes occur in the same fashion.
