The Super Bowl will feature the Rams and the Patriots. That’s been decided, right? Not so fast! There’s a rule on the books that would allow NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to possibly nullify the NFC Championship Game. You have to dig deep, we mean, really deep, into the rule book – Rule 17, Section 2, Article 1; or you can just Google it like we did! Rule 17 covers emergencies and unfair acts and Section Two covers “extraordinarily unfair acts.”
The rule subsection reads that “the Commissioner has the sole authority to investigate and take appropriate disciplinary and/or corrective measures if any club action, non-participant interference, or calamity occurs in an NFL game which he deems so extraordinarily unfair or outside the accepted tactics encountered in professional football that such action has a major effect on the result of the game.”
What does that mean? If you ask sports pendants, some are saying that the Commissioner has the authority to reverse the outcome and send the Saints to the Super Bowl instead of the Rams or require that the game be replayed.