If you’ve followed the Saints this season, Mark Butterworth’s name probably rings a bell by now.
Butterworth, the NFL’s vice president of instant replay, has been the league’s voice after each of New Orleans’ last three games when a pool reporter has asked for clarification on a ruling that stirred up plenty of debate. Three games.
Three explanations. For the Saints, that’s become the pattern.
That kind of run is unusual, even in a league that lives with controversy every week. Looking back through 56 pool reports since the 2024 season, when the Pro Football Writers Association began posting them, no team other than New Orleans has had three straight games produce one. An NFL spokesperson said it didn’t happen in 2023, either.
That makes the Saints an outlier. But it doesn’t automatically make them the league’s center of gravity when it comes to disputed officiating.
Since 2024, New Orleans is tied for third in total pool-report games with the Pittsburgh Steelers at seven. The Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles are tied for the most at nine apiece.
And a pool report doesn’t necessarily mean the disputed call decided anything. The 2025 NFC championship between the Eagles and Washington Commanders is a good example.
Philadelphia rolled to a 55-23 win, but referee Shaun Hochuli still had to explain why the Commanders were warned the officials could award a score to the Eagles after linebacker Frankie Luvu intentionally dove offside twice in a row while trying to stop the tush push. Strange?
Absolutely. Outcome-changing?
Not really.
The Saints’ recent stretch, though, has kept them in the spotlight. After Sunday’s loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, Butterworth said Tyler Shough’s fumble stood because “the quarterback clearly lost control of the ball before his hand was coming forward.” That explanation came only weeks after Butterworth said Detroit’s Jared Goff had already begun his throwing motion on a similar-looking play against New Orleans.
Inside the Saints’ locker room, that distinction did not sit quietly.
“I thought Shough’s intent was he threw it forward,” defensive end Chase Young said, making a jab at the league’s explanation that took away the pass rusher’s sack on Goff and negated a touchdown fumble recovery.
Still, even the Saints would tell you those rulings aren’t the reason they’re sitting on two losses. And with a Monday Night Football meeting with the Atlanta Falcons coming up, they do not have the luxury of lingering on what happened in those calls.
Not every pool report has gone against New Orleans, either. In Week 2 against the Ravens, Shough’s go-ahead touchdown brought another review because it was tough to tell whether he had crossed the goal line in the pile. Butterworth said there was no “clear and obvious” angle to overturn the call, which is why the touchdown stood.
“The key here is the ruling on the field is a touchdown,” Butterworth said.
Since 2024, the Saints are 2-5 in games that led to a pool report. Even so, four of the disputed calls in those games appeared to go New Orleans’ way, regardless of the final result.
That list includes last season’s game against the Patriots, when a 61-yard touchdown was erased by a late flag for offensive pass interference. It also includes a game two weeks later, when a Rashid Shaheed fumble ended with the Buccaneers having a touchdown wiped out after an official on the far side of the field blew his whistle because he thought the runner was down. And in a December 2024 loss to Washington, the Superdome clock stopped with nine seconds left, giving the Saints time for a last-second touchdown and a shot to win before they missed the 2-point try.
As for who actually handles these explanations, the league has a clear split. Butterworth, who joined the NFL in May 2024, takes the interviews when instant replay is in charge of the call. If the issue is more about what happened live - a personal foul, or a missed pass interference, for example - the lead referee speaks instead.
And not every controversial play even gets the pool-report treatment. On Sunday night, the Rams’ disputed pass interference against Denver’s Pat Bryant did not produce one, because nobody asked for it.
That didn’t stop people from noticing the irony.
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