The New Orleans Saints missed out on a first-round bye when the San Francisco 49ers beat the Seattle Seahawks Sunday night in part due to a non-call on an obvious pass interference penalty.
The Seahawks, with 15 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter, should have had first-and-goal at the one-foot line after Fred Warner mugged tight end Jacob Hollister in the end zone. Here’s a good look at the interference, which should have been called on the field and absolutely should have been reviewed when it was not.
Incredibly, the booth never stopped the game, and the Seahawks went on to fall inches short of a touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the five-yard line one play later.
Grant Paulsen of NBC Sports Washington perfectly summed up the situation on Twitter.
Now, there’s no guarantee that the Seahawks would have won the game, but they certainly would have had a better chance from one foot away than five yards.
And the real irony here is that the Saints — the team that was burned so badly last year in the playoffs, sparking the new rule to review pass interference in the first place — ended up getting hurt by the lack of implementation Sunday night.