The NFL held several talks with the union representing the league’s officials during the offseason to improve game officiating. Through two weeks of the season, those talks appear not to have had the desired effect.
Two highly controversial replay decisions on Sunday sparked outrage from fans and even led to calls for investigations. First, we go to Baltimore, where the Ravens and the Saints were tied at 17, with New Orleans on the goal line with well under two minutes remaining, and Saints head coach Kellen Moore electing to go for the touchdown rather than break the tie with a field goal.
The Saints sent quarterback Tyler Shough ahead with the QB keeper. Ravens linebacker Roquan Smith vaulted over the line and grabbed Shough by the facemask before the goal line, seemingly stopping his forward progress. Defensive lineman Tavius Robinson then grabbed the quarterback and slammed him to the ground, all of this apparently happening before the goal line.
Next, the ball pops out, and Ravens corner Marlon Humphrey recovers it.
Despite all this, the official on the far sideline, who wouldn’t have had a great vantage point of Shough’s forward progress, immediately signaled touchdown.
The play was reviewed, as all scoring plays are, and, incredibly, the on-field call was upheld.
In fairness, Smith should have been called for the facemask. However, that wasn’t called. So, the issue becomes whether Shough got in.
“We exhausted all available angles and could not prove clear and obvious that he did not break the plane of the goal line,” Mark Butterworth, NFL vice president of instant replay, told a pool reporter after the game.
Even veteran NFL official and CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore was stunned by the call.
Fans wasted no time reacting.
“I’ve posted about this already, but why no goal line technology yet in the league? ( Especially if soccer has it),” one fan wrote.
“The bigger question is WHY did the official call TD. Obviously, he didn’t see the ball cross the line. Why on earth would your hands go up if you did not witness the ball go over the line? The answer: HE GUESSED and decided which team won!” wrote another.
The replay official’s answer betrays a large part of the problem with the NFL’s replay rules: instead of letting a fresh set of eyes use technology to determine what actually happened. The league mandates that replay officials take the on-field call into account. Then the replay official must consider whether what they see irrefutably supports or disproves the referee’s decision.
Essentially, they’re not so much reviewing the play as determining whether there’s enough evidence to overturn the on-field official. If the official analyzed Shough’s play at the goal line without the referee’s call on the field, it’s very unlikely they would rule it a touchdown.
Another highly controversial moment came in the Commanders-Cowboys game, when Washington’s Marcus Mariota appeared to hit wide receiver Diyami Brown for a touchdown. The play was initially ruled incomplete.
However, after watching the replay, the video clearly showed Brown in possession of the ball with a knee down in bounds. And, as every football-watching fan knows, or thought he knew, one knee equals two feet.
So confident was Fox play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt that the call would be overturned, he threw to commercial, telling viewers the Commanders would be awarded a touchdown by the time they came back from the break.
Instead, the referees upheld the call.
Rules analyst Dean Blandino attempted to explain the decision not to overturn on the Fox telecast.
“I believe that what they are ruling is that they couldn’t determine whether [Brown] had control when he hit the ground,” Blandino said. “To me, the left knee is in; he has control.
“Side movement [of the ball] is not a loss of control. That’s a touchdown, in my opinion.”
Fans let their displeasure be known.
“I think we need to start holding these replay officials accountable by at least having them mic’d up so we can hear their process and rationale,” one fan wrote. “After what I just saw in Colts/Chiefs and Commanders/Cowboys…something feels pretty broken all of the sudden.”
“That’s a touchdown by Dyami Brown! Foot down, knee down and maintain the ball, challenge it, coach,” wrote another.
The NFL has a credibility crisis. As tempting as it is to chalk up the league’s recent ratings plunge to woke politics (and yes, that’s part of it), Goodell and Co. face no greater crisis than the fact that the officiating has deteriorated to the point where no one can believe what they’re watching anymore.
An event that is even more incredible, considering the league is now actively courting people to gamble and wager on their sport.
Replay, which was supposed to add clarity and accuracy to the game, has instead become a farce due to the incompetence of the replay officials and the absurd rules requiring replay officials to accept the call on the field and view every replay through the lens of whether there’s enough to overturn it, as opposed to watching to find out what actually happened.
In many cases, fans are now more reliable replay officials than the people paid to do it.
Good job, everyone.