ATLANTA – In a bizarre, groundhog day-like notification, a local news station reported not just that the Saints were getting a re-match with the Rams, but that the replay would be the big game.

“Fans prepare for Saints-Rams match up,” a headline suggested under text reading “Super Bowl LIII” on the screen of a report about the upcoming Super Bowl. The words were part of what TV news producers call “lower thirds” or graphics appearing on the screen during a television news report.

The bizarre – or maybe dreamy – “mistake” (is it really?) was noticed by industry blog site FTV Live.

The images were part of a report by a reporter from a TV station in North Carolina who was obviously assigned to cover this weekend’s game in Atlanta. The website only showed an image of the screen and did not include video. While the text suggested a Saints-Rams match up, it’s unlikely the reporter referenced such an event.

It’s not clear how such a suggestion ended up on television (maybe the person typing the words is a Saints fan?). While every effort is taken at television stations across the country, mistakes can happen on the graphic displays accompanying a TV report. Typically, a person types in the phrase or headline in a computer system far ahead of the item appearing on TV. In some cases, the text may have been produced much earlier, anticipating a story to save time later. Perhaps the image was copied from coverage related to the NFC Championship game and was not proofread.

The game will go down in infamy after a botched call cost the Saints a bid into this weekend’s Super Bowl.

In Baton Rouge, at least one bar plans to ignore the game on CBS and will show the previous Super Bowl featuring the Saints.

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