[Kris P Lettus]

Payton about the non-call:

What happened on the 3rd-and-1 play? “That’s on me. It was a goal line defense and I should’ve taken a timeout. The clock had gone down and we have a package where we can out of a play and into another play and the clock was running down; Drew was doing a good job of trying to use the time to our advantage. The play-design all of a sudden becomes problematic in that there’s an extra guy on the back side. I thought that at the point of attack we blocked it well, Pierre did as good a job as he could have done and they were in a front that really made it tough for us to run the play. “The thing that’s disappointing for me on that play was that earlier in the game we got called for a neutral zone infraction on Jo-Lonn Dunbar, and I’m watching the game today on the coaches’ tape and on that 3rd-and-1, their linebacker to the point of attack looked to be in the neutral zone. I went back and I looked at the TV copy and he’s a yard-and-a-half in the neutral zone on our side of the line of scrimmage. That’s a hard pill for me to swallow on a critical play like that. Now it had no bearing on the outcome of the play in regards to the result but when something like that happens, it’s not a judgment call. It’s clearly a call that’s right in front of you as a line judge and you make it or you don’t make it. Usually when it’s close, the play goes on but my problem was that it wasn’t close. My problem was that this player not only was in the neutral zone but his whole head is across the line of scrimmage and past the ball before the ball is ever snapped and no call was made. I have a hard time swallowing that because obviously all these plays are important, but from a consistency standpoint, that same penalty was called against us earlier in the game. I can understand some judgment calls – ones that maybe could go either way – but when something like that isn’t called and it’s a neutral zone infraction, it’s discouraging. “But we had plenty of opportunities. I didn’t want to get up here and start complaining about a lack of call. The play wasn’t a good play versus that front and I don’t think who the running back was would have mattered because there was guy coming free. That one’s on me.” Could that have been a big play if not for the man coming free? “It’s a big play, it’s a big gain the way it’s blocked. The problem is in a gaps defense there is one extra guy and Zach Strief was doing his job to handle the down lineman and then there was one extra. To battle that you get into tighter formation and bring a receiver in tight to handle that extra guy, but those are all things that are hindsight. I think at the point of attack it was blocked extremely well considering there was a guy a yard offsides on defense.”