A source with knowledge of the situation tells us that the game officials in Denver made another bad call that again contributed to a win by the Broncos.

Last week, it was Ed Hochulis failure to recognize that Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler had fumbled the ball, ruling instead that Cutler had thrown an incomplete pass. The Chargers easily recovered the fumble, which was overturned via replay to be a fumble, but which by rule was dead when it hit the ground.

This week, the crew of officials handling the game between the Saints and Broncos didnt notice that a member of the Denver defense was clearly lined up offside on the third-and-short play that preceded the missed field goal by Saints kicker Martin Gramatica late in the game.

If the penalty had been called, the Saints would have gotten a first down at the Denver 19, with plenty of time to get closer for the potential game-winning field goal.

The referee was Ron Winter, but he was stationed behind the backfield. The head linesman was Jim Mello, and the line judge was Tom Stephan. One of them was straddling the line of scrimmage, and should have seen that the Denver play was lined up across the ball.

Weve got a feeling that the Saints sounded like sinners once they figured out what had happened.

Heres the image.