Critical Call Time : Officials’ Goal-Line Ruling, Mora’s ‘Go-for-Six’ Decision Sealed Saints’ Fate

The song says New Orleans is the land of dreams, and another one may have died in Anaheim Stadium Sunday.

The 26-13 loss to the Rams left the Saints 6-6 and needing to win three of their last four games against the Patriots, Dolphins, Falcons and Vikings to post a winning season and reach the National Football League playoffs for the first time in the 20-year history of the franchise.

They won’t do it the way they played Sunday, drowning in a creole gumbo of turnovers, penalties, missed opportunities and borderline calls that seemed to consistently favor the home side.

Coach Jim Mora said: “Every game boils down to critical plays, and there were critical plays today.”

Two are worth mentioning. They happened one after the other late in the first quarter after the Saints, trailing, 7-0, reached the Rams’ four-yard line, third and goal.

Quarterback Dave Wilson passed to wide receiver Eric Martin, who fell on his back at the goal line, then brought the ball across his chest. But did any part of the ball cross the plane of the goal line?

Head linesman Earnie Frantz said no, indeed. With incredible judgment, Frantz ruled that the ball should be spotted at the one- inch line.

With eyesight like that, Frantz is the envy of all bird-watchers.

“I thought Eric was in,” Wilson said to reporters after the game. “What did you guys think? The replay communicator said they had a bad angle. The only angle they had was from a midfield camera.”

That, Saint General Manager Jim Finks learned from replay official Norm Schacter later, was because the game was only a regional, instead of a national telecast, so CBS used fewer cameras.

“He told me there’s no-goal line camera unless it’s a national game,” Finks said.

A week earlier, after the Saints had beaten the Cardinals for their third straight win, Finks thought there were some questionable calls and said: “We’re not allowed to comment on the lousy officiating.”

This time he wouldn’t even say that.

“I hate to comment when we lose,” he said. “It just makes us look like poor losers.”

Mora also sidestepped the issue, saying: “There are always calls you’re displeased with, but I don’t have a very good picture from where I am. Sometimes your coaches in the press box will say, ‘Oh, that was a bad call,’ but they’re involved emotionally, too.”

That’s fair. The officials didn’t comment on his coaching, either.

After the ball was spotted at the one-inch line, fourth and goal, Mora disdained the customary field goal, trying to tie the score. He called for “quarterback wedge formation,” which has running backs Rueben Mayes and Buford Jordan lined up right behind the offensive line, almost shoulder to shoulder with Wilson.

Since a handoff would be virtually impossible, the Rams guessed that Wilson would run a sneak. And when he did, the Rams’ burrowed under, Vince Newsome stood Wilson up and Carl Ekern came over the top to finish him off. The play surprised no one.

“No, we didn’t,” Mora conceded, “but I don’t think we have to surprise ‘em. We ought to be able to knock ‘em back and get in. An inch, I figured hey, we’re going to make an inch. They can’t stop us with an inch. We’re going to go for it.”

But as time ran out before halftime, the Saints trailed, 10-3, and had another chance to tie with the ball at the Rams’ one-yard line. This time, Mora elected to have Morten Andersen kick a field goal.

“There was a difference in what we needed to make,” Mora said. “(That) time I felt like we ought to get the three points.”

By the time the Saints got that close again, the Rams had a stranglehold on the victory--certainly a different game from the one they lost at New Orleans two weeks earlier, 6-0.

Jim Everett was on the sidelines for that one.

“Everett is going to be a fine player, and yet I don’t think he was the difference in the ballgame today,” Mora said.

Everett’s first NFL start was less auspicious than his debut in relief when he threw three touchdown passes against the Patriots. Sunday he completed only 7 of 20 passes for 56 yards and threw 2 interceptions.

But Eric Dickerson ran for 116 yards, more than twice as many as he managed in the Superdome. Was that because the Saints were distracted by Everett’s presence?

“No, I don’t think so,” Mora said. “They probably played better and we probably didn’t play as well defensively. It’s hard to duplicate what we did that first game. You aren’t going to see many teams hold the Rams to 53 yards rushing and Dickerson to 57.

“We weren’t in any eight-man stacks the first time we played them, no matter what they might think. We played the run. We came into this game feeling that to beat these guys, still the guy you’ve got to stop is Eric Dickerson. He’s still the first priority.”

But Bruce Clark, the Saints’ Pro Bowl defensive end, said: “Two weeks ago we knew they had to give it to Eric.”

Rickey Jackson, the Pro Bowl linebacker, said that Everett’s presence “made a whole lot of difference. A quarterback like that who can run, who can throw and mix it up . . . he does make a difference. We were distracted (from Dickerson) because I knew he was going to get his passes off.

“He wasn’t trying to go deep the first time he started. The coach had good strategy for him: Just give him the 10-yard out, the 10-yard in. Play it safe with him.

“Maybe later in the year they’ll let him open up. Today wasn’t the Jim Everett you’re going to see in the future. They just had everything basic for him to keep him out of trouble.

“We didn’t go after him very hard. I thought we were going to go after him all day. We just let him sit back there and do what he wanted.”

Wilson was at a loss to explain the continued inconsistency of the Saints’ offense.

“You guys are trying to ask me some questions I really don’t want to answer,” he told reporters. “It could also be that they just stuck it to us in there.”

But Jackson wasn’t giving up on the dream.

“We’re going to win the next four games and be 10 and 6,” he said. “That’d be where I predicted all year, that we’d be 10 and 6.”