By BRUCE LOWITT
Super Bowl LVIII has the potential to be “the most controversial and screwed up NFL championship game ever,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said Thursday, one day after announcing that referee Bill Vinovich will lead the crew officiating it.
After a season in which officials were often criticized by players, coaches, fans, and sports media, the choice of Vinovich, whose crew failed to throw not one but two obviously deserved penalty flags that almost certainly cost New Orleans the 2018 NFC Championship, was viewed by many as a bizarre decision.
“Given that the game is being played in Las Vegas, America’s gambling capital, what are the, heh-heh, odds that Mr. Vinovich or one of the other zebras is going to, uh, drop the ball at just the wrong moment and screw a team out of the Vince Lombardi Trophy?” growled Patrick Mahomes, quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, one of four teams vying for a place in the Feb. 11 game at Allegiant Stadium.
What with officials wiping out a two-point conversion that cost Detroit – another Super Bowl contender – a regular-season victory over against Dallas, or the Packers’ uncalled blatant pass interference against the Chiefs, or various holding and roughing-the-passer calls and non-calls, the NFL, it could be said, has a lot of ‘splaining to do.
In the final minutes of the 2018 NFC championship, with the score 20-20, officials missed obvious third-down pass interference and a helmet-to-helmet hit by Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman against Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis. It would have given New Orleans a first down inside LA’s 5-yard line with a chance to score a TD or run the clock and set up Wil Lutz’s attempt at a chip-shot game-winning field goal.
But the call of an incomplete pass stopped the clock. Lutz kicked a fourth-down field goal with 1:45 to play, Rams place-kicker Greg Zuerlein tied it with 19 seconds left and won it 26-23 in overtime.
“Hey, what do you expect from me?” Vinovich said afterward. “There was all these fans screaming and waving shit and players running all over the place and slamming into each other and how are we supposed to see every freakin’ play? I mean, haven’t you TV guys called the wrong names? Haven’t you writers misspelled words? Mistakes happen. Jesus, give us a break.”
Goodell admitted, “Yeah, we really blew that one big time. But let me remind you, LA lost that Super Bowl. So it, like, evened out, right?”
“I’ll tell you this,” the commissioner added. “If there’s a blown call in this Super Bowl – and like Patrick said, ‘What are the odds?’ – I don’t want to find myself in another shitstorm. But I probably will.”
lowittlowdown 
your piece on GOP circling firing squad is as good as anything of yours I have seen
Norm Abelson
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Norm,
That all depends on where you set the bar. Were you, say, a sibling of mine, I’d offer an indulgent smile. Were you, on the other hand, a member of the Pulitzer committee, I’d be calling everyone I know. I trust you fit somewhere between the two (but a tad closer to the latter), so a very heartfelt thank you to someone whose writing I have admired for years from someone who tries his best.
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