As has been reported many times before and by this time I’m sure everybody is sick of hearing about, there was an interesting play during the Texans-Lions game on Thursday which has everybody up in arms. The Lions head coach throwing the challenge flag when nullified the review that was sure to come from the replay both.
I wish I would have started this blog before this season, because we saw this exact same thing occur during a Packers preseason game in which McCarthy attempted to challenge a turnover and was penalized 15 yards and the play was not reviewed. This should have been a major wake up call to the NFL that this needs to be addressed before a real game was affected, like on Thursday. Then again, the NFL was not thinking when using replacement officials so why would they use logic in this case?
The sad thing is, there is nothing the NFL will do about this until the season has completed because they say it is too difficult to implement a rule change mid-season. This is not a hard change, let coaches challenge in the final 2 minutes + OT, turnovers and touchdowns in addition to the replay offical being able to stop the game.
In reality, we are slowly progressing towards a college like replay system in which the replay offical can review all plays. So I say, lets just end the insanity and next season move to a college replay system.
We are so stuck in the detail of the rules, we forgot the reason replay was brought back…. To get the call RIGHT. Instead replay is creating more issues rather than preventing them,
My prediction for the next big gaff in the replay system? Field Goal over the upright. Since reply can only be used to determine if the ball crossed over the crossbar on Field Goal, we will have a kick that is called good (or no good) and the officials will call the opposite.
We have not heard the end of issues with the rules around replay. So until next time…..
A few thoughts from Brian 