It wasn't called because it wasn't a penalty. If you watch the play live Goff dips and when he does Anzalone is no longer in position to hit him square. Anzalones hand grazes Goffs facemask and he never closes his hand knowing where his hand is. Anzalone keeps going and Goff gets two extra yards. When the NFL got rid of the 5yd flag every facemask was 15 yards. After realizing how absurd that was they wrote verbiage in the rule for the penalty that allowed for inadvertent contact on a runner as long as the defender does not attempt to bring down the player by grasping the facemask. Anzalone was textbook. He knew his position and what it would mean. He looks back sees he has help and removes himself from the play. The only "missed" call that favored the Saints was the missed facemask on Cooks, but the Rams scored a TD on that drive making the penalty moot.

The Goff face mask is never shown at full speed only it stills or in slow motion to allow one to infer that Goffs head was spun around. Just like when Higbee shoved the defender in the back and he has to jump over the Rams player on the ground. They only show the still because it allows one to infer the defender his stomping on the Rams player when he in fact makes an athletic move to jump him and straddle his helmet to not so so. Just like the times the Saints snapped the ball .01 seconds after the play clock hit zero just like the Rams did on several occasions as well.

The most egregious missed calls were Suh shoving Brees after the ball was down field,when Apple was held when he was about to come clean on Goff, when Brockers drove an elbow into Brees back on the Suh/Fowler sack, the holding penalty on Robey-Coleman on the third down play, the DPI/helmet-to-helmet on Coleman, and the hands to the face on Brees in OT. If two of those calls are made Saints win going away. As an NFL fan calls are missed. One could expect to be upset but understand human error on any combination of those being missed.

The fact of the matter is that refs allow more to slide.in the playoffs not wanting a call to effect the game. These refs we're even moreso because the umpire had already been inferred to have shown bias against one of the teams. The NFL should have swapped crews when the petition and noise came out about the Rams being 0-8 when the umpire called their games. Doing so is a sign of good fate and helps alleviate any chance at bias one way or another, intentional or subconscious.

None of that matters. None of that makes the way the season ended suck less. None of it makes up for what was conceivably the Saints best shot in this window. None of it makes it any easier to get over. It sucks, Saints fans have a right to be pissed at what occurred and at the lack of leadership in the league office. The NFL deserves flack for how it went down, and the optics of the teams they wanted (and needed due to investments in the new stadium).

All that said I'm ready for the revenge tour. Ready to watch this defense continue to mature, and to see how this team responds. Who Dat and F**k Goodell