Even after scoring a late touchdown and recovering an onside kick, the likelihood that the Saints were going to defeat the Seahawks in this past weekend's divisional round playoff matchup was pretty slim.

That said, those long odds didn't stop Twitter from erupting when receiver Marques Colston caught a pass inside Seattle's 40 yard line with precious few seconds remaining and -- instead of stepping out of bounds to set up one final Hail Mary in an 8-point game -- instead threw wildly and forward across the field, effectively ending the game in a 23-15 Seahawks victory.

Well, if you hated the play, don't blame Colston. You can still hate the execution, but the design and decision falls on Sean Payton. Because that play was all planned. Per NOLA.com:

Colston and Saints coach Sean Payton addressed the final play Monday.

Payton said it "absolutely" was a designed play, putting to bed the possibility that Colston might have lost track of the clock and tried to extend the play on his own when he could've just darted out of bounds, giving the Saints a closer crack at the end zone.

"Listen, Marques, we're at that point, and we're probably maybe a play early from it, but with no timeouts, we'd kind of seen something on tape, Marques has got a pretty good arm," Payton said. "You know, hindsight, a play where he could have caught it, stepped out and then maybe a Hail Mary to the end zone.

"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."

In case you haven't seen the play, here is the footage. We suppose that if it would have somehow worked, Payton would be hailed a genius. That said, we'd rather take a chance with a Hail Mary than what the Saints tried.