NFL competition committee proposes to modify replay review
The NFL’s competition committee has proposed making some modifications to their replay reviews for penalties. The change would add an extra instant replay component to assist officials during plays with a thrown penalty flag.
In practice, the rule change would allow for an extra replay official to review a play where a flag is thrown and determine if it was the correct call.
The replay official could overturn the call on the field for “objective aspects of a play and/or to address game administration issues when clear and obvious video evidence is present,” (NFL Playing Rule Proposal No. 3, via Tom Pelissero). In other words, the video review showed that a penalty was clearly not actually committed.
Presumably, replay assist will almost inevitably continue to be introduced to the NFL and professional sports at large. However, with this specific installment, is it truly necessary?
Obviously, bad penalties are aggravating for everyone involved, and on the surface, mitigating those from the game seems like a good idea. That being said, replay review involving penalties hasn’t worked for the NFL in the past — think pass interference challenges that came and went in 2019.
So, why should this be any different, and on top of that, how common are the blatant wrong calls the league is targeting?
Regardless, the league will discuss at the annual meeting next week. It will be interesting to see if the modification gets approved. If it does, it’s curious how the change is actually executed in games.
Luke Graham is a digital sports content co-op for 98.5 the Sports Hub. He is currently a sophomore at Northeastern University studying communications and media studies. Read all his articles here, and follow him on X @LukeGraham05.
