New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton played a critical role in pushing the NFL to change its pass interference rules, making calls and non-calls subject to a coach’s challenge outside the final two minutes of games — in which those plays will be automatically reviewed by the replay booth officials, as with other penalties.
These changes were prompted by a controversial call in the 2018 NFC championship game in which Los Angeles Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman committed pass interference to avoid allowing a touchdown, which would have set Payton’s Saints up from first-and-goal close to the end of regulation, but was not flagged. The Saints lost that game; afterwards, the NFL head of officiating called Payton to apologize for the oversight, while Robey-Coleman admitted his foul to media.
Still, not everyone is pleased with the change. Detractors have suggested the move will slow down the pace of play and result in longer games; after all, nearly any play is now subject to review, whether from a coach’s challenge or a call from the booth after the two-minute warning. But Payton isn’t buying that concern.
“Let’s start with the very first premise for the fans,” Payton said on NFL Total Access during an appearance from the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship. “It’s still just like all the other challenges that we have in place. Remember: We only have two [challenges] to start with. So I don’t think you’re going to see more challenge flags.”
If anything, Payton imagines coaches will be even more stingy with their use of challenges, knowing how important it is to have them available late in games: “Probably you’re going to be a little bit more judicious knowing that you want to have at least one left and if you feel like there’s something you see clearly and it’s outside of two minutes [before each half], as a coach you can challenge it. And of course, inside of two minutes, it goes upstairs to replay.”
Replay technology has proliferated around professional sports in the months since that botched NFC title game. Everything from the Kentucky Derby to the FIFA Women’s World Cup has been impacted by video-assisted reviews to ensure the right team wins. At the end of the day, Payton feels that coaches, players, and spectators all want the same result: a result that lines up with what happened on the field. “And we’re all, in this day and age with our technology and with the fans getting a chance to see real-time, we’re wanting those calls, especially in games like that, to be officiated correctly.”
