Sean Payton didn’t challenge the spot on a third-and-one play on the Vikings’ first drive, even though an overhead shot clearly showed Latavius Murray was short of the line to gain. The Saints, though, did challenge two fourth-quarter plays that cost them two timeouts.
Payton said the team was blindly making challenge decisions because they didn’t have full access to replay.
“Our monitor was down,” Payton said, via Josh Katzenstein of the Times-Picayune. “Our booth was the only booth that didn’t have a feed to it. So you’ve just got to go with your gut, and fortunately, it wasn’t an issue with the timeouts.”
As it turned out, the ill-advised challenges did not play a role in the game. The Saints didn’t need the timeouts, and, after losing his challenges, there were no other questionable plays that would have caused Payton to throw his red flag.