After a crucial officiating mistake helped lift the Rams over the Saints in the NFC Championship Game on Jan. 20, the NFL will consider making changes to its instant replay rules this offseason. However, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell doubts the changes being considered would have resolved the missed pass interference call late in the fourth quarter of that game.
“We will look again at instant replay,” Goodell said Wednesday at his annual Super Bowl news conference according to ESPN. “There have been a variety of proposals over the last, frankly, 15, 20 years on whether replay should be expanded. It does not cover judgment calls; this was a judgment call. The other complication is that it was a no-call.
“And our coaches and clubs have been very resistant, and there has not been support to date, about having a replay official or somebody in New York throw a flag when there is no flag. They have not voted for that in the past.”
The play in question came when Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman laid a helmet-to-helmet hit on Saints wide receiver Tommylee Lewis with under two minutes remaining and the score tied at 20-20 in New Orleans. The refs missed what seemed to be a blatant defensive pass interference call, and the Rams went on to win in overtime. As a result, the NFL is expected to consider a plan that would allow limited coaches’ challenges for incorrect judgment calls according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. He reports that the new rule could include a penalty or time run off if the coach is wrong.
“We have worked very hard to bring technology in to try to make sure we can do whatever’s possible to address those issues,” Goodell said on Wednesday. “But technology’s not going to solve all those issues. The game is not officiated by robots. It’s not going to be. But we have to continue to go down that path.”
SportTechie Takeaway
The NFL’s competition committee will head into this offseason aware of the fine line the league must walk when deciding how far to expand instant replay usage. As long as human referees are involved, mistakes will be made, but find ways to reduce the possibility of mistakes, or reverse no-calls, could prevent future controversy.
However, for fans who might already feel NFL games are too long (the ball is only in-play for an average of 11 minutes during a three-hour game), more opportunities to use instant replay would create more stoppages of play and stretch games out further.