Roger Goodell finally publicly admits zebras screwed up in NFC championship game no-call

ATLANTA – For the first time since it happened nearly two weeks ago, the National Football League finally got around to admitting publicly that Bill Vinovich and his officiating crew blew it when they swallowed their whistles and failed to call an obvious pass-interference penalty on Rams cornerback Nikell Robey-Coleman in the NFC championship game.

“It’s a [penalty] that should be called,’’ NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday at his annual Super Bowl week news conference.

“We understand the frustration that the Saints and their fans are feeling right now, and we certainly want to address that," Goodell said. "Whenever officiating is a part of any kind of postgame discussion, it’s never a good outcome for us.

“But our officials are human. They’re officiating a game that, very quickly, they have to make snap decisions under difficult circumstances. And they’re not going to get it right every time.’’

Robey clearly ran into Saints wide receiver Tommy lee Lewis with the ball still in the air on a third-and-10 play with 1:49 left, but no flag was thrown.

A pass interference call would have given the Saints a first down and allowed them to run down the clock and win the game with a Wil Lutz field goal. If that had happened, they’d be in the Super Bowl on Sunday instead of the Rams.

Instead, the Rams got the ball back, tied the game with 15 seconds left on a 48-yard Greg Zuerlein field goal, then won it in overtime on a 57-yard Zuerlein boot.

After the game, Al Riveron, the league’s head of officials, admitted to Saints coach Sean Payton that there should have been a penalty. The league even fined Robey for a helmet-to-helmet contact last week. But that is little solace to the Saints.

In New Orleans before Goodell’s news conference, Payton said that he probably would never get over the missed penalties on that play, but for days he spent time alone on the couch, eating ice cream and watching Netflix.

And Robey-Coleman said at the Rams’ media availability that he received “one or two death threats" in the days after the game.

Goodell said that the league’s competition committee will consider changes, including adding pass interference to the list of calls that can be challenged and/or reversed by instant replay, and adding an eighth member to officiating crews, who would be stationed on the field or in the booth.

“We will look again at instant replay,’’ Goodell said. “There have been a variety of proposals over the last 15 to 20 years, of should replay be expanded. It doesn’t cover judgment calls. This was a judgment call.

“The other complication was that it was a no-call. Our coaches and clubs have been very resistant, and there’s not been support to date about having a replay official or somebody in New York [at the league offices] throwing a flag when there’s been no flag.

“They have not broken that impasse. It doesn’t mean that they won’t. It’s something that we’re going to put to the competition committee and see if there’s an answer to that. But the reality has been that many clubs have been philosophically opposed to it.

“We have made changes to our rules every year. We constantly try to get better. We try to learn. And I think that has been effective. I don’t think the game has ever been officiated at a higher level.

“It’s extraordinary.’’

Tell that to the Saints.

Eight of this season’s head coaches were fired. Five of them were minorities. Patriots linebackers coach Brian Flores, who is expected to be named the Dolphins’ new coach after the Super Bowl, will be the only minority among the eight newbies, which means the league’s number of minority head coaches heading into the 2019 season will have shrunk from eight to four.

Goodell, however, took umbrage with suggestions that the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority for head-coaching and key front-office jobs, isn’t working.

“We don’t look at the success or failure of the Rooney Rule in one-year increments,’’ he said. “We’ve had the Rooney Rule around for nearly 20 years. It’s had an extraordinary impact on the NFL.

“We’ve hired over 20-plus minority head coaches during that period of time. It’s created opportunities. It’s given people an opportunity that they didn’t have in the past.’’

So, tell us again, Mr. Commissioner, why no team in the league has been willing to sign quarterback Colin Kaepernick in the last two years. “Our clubs are the ones who make decisions on the players they want on their rosters,’’ Goodell said. “They all want to win and will do whatever they think helps them achieve that. If a team decides Colin Kaepernick, or any other player, will help them, that’s what they’ll do.’’

Goodell said the investigation into former Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt, who was caught on video pushing and kicking a woman, is winding down. “We haven’t concluded the investigation, but there’s been a tremendous amount of progress,’’ he said. Hunt, who was released by Kansas City in late November after the video surfaced on TMZ, is a free agent. If a team signs him, he would be placed on the commissioner’s exempt list until the investigation is concluded. If there is a suspension, he would have to serve that before being allowed to play.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.