In their second game against the Buccaneers Color Rush Larry Warford Jersey , something happened that has become a semi-regular occurrence during the Saints’ 2018 season. Former Tulane kicker, Cairo Santos, missed two field goals, one from 46 and one from 40 yards. True, Santos has only hit 71.9% of his career field goals between 40 and 49 yards. But you have to admit, when it comes to kicking against the Saints this year, no kick from any distance is a gimme.The trend started, back in September, in week two against the Cleveland Browns. Second year kicker Zane Gonzalez Youth Michael Thomas Jersey , the NCAA record holder for career points by a kicker and Lou Groza Award winner, missed two extra points and two field goals. During the fourth quarter, Gonzalez missed an extra point that would have given the Browns the lead with 1:16 left to play. Will Lutz made a 44 yarder after the Saints marched down the field, then Gonzalez missed a 52 yarder to send the game into overtime. The Saints barely won and the Browns gave Gonzalez his pink slip the very next day.In October, against the Ravens, kicker misfortune struck again. After never missing an extra point since high school and making 222 of 222 of his first career extra points in the NFL, two time All-Pro kicker Justin Tucker did just that while handing the Saints another razor thin victory. With a 90.5% career field goal percentage, Tucker is officially the most accurate kicker in NFL history. His 97.2% extra point conversion rate made this extremely rare miss even more shocking, especially since Tucker is still enjoying his second best season of his career at a cool 92.9% field goal conversion rate for the year.Perhaps there were no words for his freak miss that encapsulated the moment better than his expression following his first professional missed extra point.Of course it doesn’t help when the announcer lays out the old broadcaster curse.The Saints won both of those games with the help of their opponents’ kicking performances. Those two wins could prove to be major factors in the Saints’ final playoff seeding. But the bad kicking juju didn’t end there.In November Youth Cameron Jordan Jersey , Los Angeles Rams kicker Greg Zuerlein missed a 51 yard field goal wide right. Zuerlein doesn’t have an amazing history kicking from 50+ yards (58.7% career from 50+), but the play became a 10 point swing as the Saints then used the short field to march towards a touchdown and extend their second quarter lead to two scores. It was a momentum shifting miss for sure.So far the Saints’ list of kicking victims in 2018 includes Gonzalez, Tucker, Zuerlein, and Santos. Two more solid veteran kickers in Carolina’s Graham Gano and Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell will face the Saints in the coming three weeks. Both boast career field goal percentages in the low to mid 80’s and career extra point percentages in the mid 90’s.Yet something has me thinking one or both of them is going to miss one when it might matter most. Fingers crossed. The Cowboys barely won on Thursday night, the Saints barely lost. The officials, led by referee Walt Anderson, suffered a blowout.Various bad calls undermined a great game, with the most consequential blunder coming when Saints running back Alvin Kamara sustained the kind of hit that the new rule against lowering the helmet (as unofficially revised but not officially revised) was specifically aimed at eliminating from the sport. But no flag was thrown.There’s a good chance the call would have been missed even if the rule hadn’t been unofficially relaxed. Officials are still adjusting to a widening of the focus Color Rush Vonn Bell Jersey , watching one player approaching another and adopting the prohibited linear posture before making impact. Last night, Smith rocketed toward Kamara, and the seven officials who are primarily trying to avoid being trampled by young men in armor didn’t see it coming.That’s why the NFL needs to eventually embrace the use of an eighth member of the officiating crew. But that person wouldn’t be put on the field. Official No. 8 would sit at a bank of monitors, seeing every possible camera angle. Official No. 8 would be in constant contact with the referee or some other member of the on-field crew. Official No. 8 would serve as an extra set of eyes from the perspective of a viewer, bridging the gap between what the officials see from within the field and what the rest of us see from within our homes.It wouldn’t be part of the replay process, because it wouldn’t be replay review, per se. It would be an embrace of the primary manner in which pro football is consumed, and it would provide real-time assistance to the officiating crew from place of no physical peril.Eventually, it will happen. A blown call that affects a game and/or the application of the betting line will Marshon Lattimore Jersey , as legal wagering spreads, force the league to make what should be an easy and obvious change. As hard-earned dollars legitimately ride on whether or not officials get it right, the league will face relentless pressure to get it right, all the time.For decades, the supposed purity of sport has embraced the impurity of human error. When the final score of sporting events begin to have the same relevance to American society as the rising and falling of stock prices, the challenge for sports leagues will be to take all steps necessary to eradicate human error from its games.Having a real-time video official who has the same standing as an official who is standing on the field would assist in that objective, while creating relatively minimal delays. And if the NFL doesn’t make this change on its own, some governmental body eventually will demand it. www.nflshopoutlet.com/detroit-lions