The Week 9 battle of the explosive offenses of the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams didn’t disappoint. Each drove for touchdowns on their first two drives, and the Saints came out on top of the shootout with a 45-35 win.
This Johnny Hekker fake should’ve been a first down for the Rams
If officials pieced a few replays together, it’s hard to figure out why they still ruled this fake field goal short of a first down.
It was a costly failed fake field goal for the Rams in the second quarter that swung the momentum in New Orleans’ favor early. But replays showed it was probably ruled incorrectly.
Johnny Hekker appeared to reach the line
The Rams punter isn’t unfamiliar with fakes. He’s already thrown two passes in 2018 and 17 over the course of his career. But running on a fake isn’t something he does often.
Hekker didn’t look out of his element when he took off against the Saints, though. He ran for the first down marker on the sideline and certainly thought he did enough to reach the ball across the line:
Officials disagreed, though. He was marked just short and the call was upheld after Sean McVay challenged the ruling.
It takes multiple angles to show Hekker made it
The problem for the Rams is that there was no clear camera angle proving the Rams punter made the line to gain. But replay officials are allowed to sync up more than one angle to determine a call. Looking at a few different views of Hekker’s run should’ve been enough to rule it a first down.
The best look was this view from across the field that showed Hekker clearly reached across the 12-yard line:
The question is just when his knee was down or out bounds. While it’s difficult to see from that angle, a couple others showed it’s clear he managed to keep his knee up until he went out of bounds
Piece the replays together and it’s surprising that officials still decided to mark Hekker short.
The play was a huge momentum swing
Had Hekker been awarded a first down, the Rams offense would’ve been set up in the red zone, primed to take a 21-14 lead. Instead, the Saints took over and scored to take that 21-14 lead for themselves.
Then things began to snowball and the Saints scored two more touchdowns to take a 35-14 lead in the second quarter, and eventually a 35-17 lead into halftime.
Hekker’s play didn’t have much of an impact on the fact that the New Orleans offense mowed through the Rams defense for most of the first half. And it was a forgotten moment once the Rams scored 21 straight points to tie the game, 35-35, in the fourth quarter. But it’s hard not to point to the Hekker fake as a significant swing of momentum in the Rams’ only loss of the year.
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