New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton has admitted that his side's ill-fated final play during their playoff defeat to the Seattle Seahawks was planned.
The Saints trailed by eight points with 11 seconds remaining in the match when quarterback Drew Brees found Marques Colston with a pass, and he in turn tried to pass it on again to Travaris Cadet instead of running it out of bounds to set up a possible Hail Mary into the endzone.
Colston was criticised for the play after the game, but Payton has defended the wide receiver, revealing that they had added the move to their repertoire a week earlier.
"We're probably maybe a play early from [needing to call] it, but with no timeouts. We'd kind of seen something on tape, Marques has got a pretty good arm," Payton told reporters.
"You know, hindsight, [it was] a play where he could have caught it, stepped out and then maybe [we throw] a Hail Mary to the endzone.
"But it was a play we had put in a week and a half ago, prior to this game, which was a deep throw to Marques and then across the field to Cadet. So, yeah, he wasn't freelancing."
The Saints finished the regular season with an 11-5 record before beating the Philadelphia Eagles in the wildcard round of the playoffs.
