Clock mysteriously freezes in crucial final seconds of Saints-Commanders game

NFL fans have questions after the game clock inexplicably stopped with nine seconds left in the fourth quarter in a mistake that nearly turned the fate of Sunday’s Saints-Commanders game.Foster Moreau caught a Spencer Rattler pass on fourth and three, with the Saints tight end backpedaling and attempting to get into the end zone, eventually falling just before the goal line with 11 seconds remaining in a 20-13 game.The clock ticked down to nine seconds before pausing for approximately four seconds as Moreau and the Saints offense rushed back to the line of scrimmage.

That allowed the Saints, who had no remaining timeouts, to spike the ball with three seconds left before throwing a touchdown pass on the final play of regulation to bring the score to 20-19.New Orleans then decided to go for two and the win but an incomplete pass to tight end Juwan Johnson would end the game as Washington escaped with the one-point victory.

After the game, pool reporters asked official Shawn Hochuli why the clock stopped.“The covering official mistakenly stopped the clock in that situation,” Hochuli said.

“The clock should not have stopped.”When asked whether the play was reviewable, Hochuli added that it was not an option.“No, it’s not a situation that is reviewable,” Hochuli said.Hochuli then cut off the questioning.“That’s all I have for you,” he said.The spread of the game was Washington -7.5, so for any conspiracy theorists out there who think the situation was anything other than human error, the final play did not impact whether the Commanders covered the spread.However, had the Saints converted the two-point conversion it would have cost the Commanders a game they likely deserved to win.Washington is 9-5 and is leading Seattle by one game for the final wild-card spot in the NFC.Had the Commanders lost, they would’ve fallen to 8-6 and would have been tied with the Seahawks for the final wild-card slot.

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