It takes no originality to say that the National Football League’s officiating mistakes continue to be a major embarrassment and that its inability to consistently enforce pass interference is bordering on scandalous.

In what is either more unlucky voodoo or an example of whiners being hoisted by their own petard (depending on your sympathies as a fan), the New Orleans Saints this year have been suffering from the very rule-change they instigated. After the fiasco in last year’s NFC championship game, where a missed interference call kept the Saints from the Super Bowl, it was the Saints’ persistent lobbying that led the NFL to make interference reviewable via instant replay.