• NFL opposes Rams-Saints do-over, saying it could cost league more than

    From Incompetent Roger Goodell@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jan 27 14:54:23 2019
    XPost: alt.sports.football.pro.phila-eagles, alt.sports.football.pro.ne-patriots, alt.sports.football.pro.no-saints
    XPost: alt.sports.football.pro.la-rams

    A rematch of last weekend’s NFC Championship Game due to bad
    call could cost the league millions, the NFL said Friday.

    NFL Chief Financial Officer Joseph Siclare said in a sworn
    affidavit that replaying the final minutes of last Sunday’s game
    between the Los Angeles Rams and the New Orleans Saints because
    of a bad call could cost the NFL “more than $100 million”
    because it could mean delaying Super Bowl LIII.

    No penalty was called after Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-
    Coleman hit Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis while a Drew Brees
    pass was in the air with less than two minutes remaining in the
    game. A flag for pass interference would have given the Saints a
    first down and a chance to run down the clock before kicking a
    potential game-winning field goal.

    Instead, the Saints were forced to kick the field goal sooner,
    and returned possession to the Rams -- giving Los Angeles enough
    time on the clock to tie the game again and force it into
    overtime, where the Rams won.

    Siclare’s affidavit was the league’s first response to a lawsuit
    filed by two Saints season-ticket holders asking a state court
    judge to order Commissioner Roger Goodell to either reverse the
    game’s result or reschedule the game from the point of the no-
    call -- or replay the game in its entirety.

    The filings are also an attempt to move the case from state
    court to federal court – giving the league a fairer chance.

    The NFL cited a federal law that allows a defendant to
    automatically remove a state class-action lawsuit to federal
    court when the parties are from different states and the amount
    of the damages sought by the plaintiffs exceeds $5 million.

    Siclare’s affidavit addresses the plaintiffs' demand to issue
    full refunds to the more than 72,000 ticket holders. He says
    this would cost the league an estimated $16 million, well beyond
    the threshold required to move the lawsuit to the federal court.

    Replaying the game, and delaying the Super Bowl, would be even
    more costly, Siclare said.

    "The Super Bowl, the NFL's premier event, is a carefully planned
    and enormously expensive undertaking, with preparations
    carefully sequenced," from logistics to producing a "full-blown
    music concert at halftime," Siclare wrote.

    Aside from the legal filings, the NFL has not publically
    addressed last Sunday’s game. It say Friday that it had fined
    Robey-Coleman $26,739 for his helmet-to-helmet hit on Lewis — a
    second infraction that went unflagged on the same play.

    Fox News Samuel Chamberlain and the Associated Press contributed
    to this report

    https://www.foxnews.com/sports/nfl-says-rams-saints-rematch- could-cost-millions

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)