Did refs call most embarrassing penalty of season in Saints-Seahawks game?

The New Orleans Saints scrapped their way to a hard-fought victory over the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night, and they had to overcome one of the worst penalty calls of the season while doing it.

Saints defensive end Marcus Davenport was flagged for unnecessary roughness early in the third quarter. See if you can spot the penalty:

new game same garbage pic.twitter.com/0tuZUbphLT

— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) October 26, 2021

The officials did not explain the call. The flag was for unnecessary roughness rather than roughing the passer, so it’s possible the issue could have been the way Davenport steamrolled Seahawks offensive lineman Brandon Shell. He may have committed an illegal use of hands to the face penalty, but that’s not what was called.

It seems like the flag came out because Davenport touched Smith. The Seahawks would have picked up a first down on the play anyway, but the bad call gave them free yards at a time when they were trailing 10-7.

We’ve seen some truly horrible calls this season surrounding the quarterback, but that may have been the worst of them.