Maybe roll the high standard into a time limit on the review itself? If you can't see something definitive in 15-20 seconds, let the play stand. Of course, longer reviews allow for commercial breaks.
Refs instructed to throw a late flag in Denver?
- Thread starter 86spike
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He clearly stated you'd get a maximum number of reviews in the very next sentence. I really don't see the issue with everything being reviewable. Games turn on these ticky tack calls all the time, not just catch/no catch kind of stuff. We heard the same thing about review in MLB yet games are still miraculously under 12 hours despite the disgust of purists.
I wasn't clear and no, I didn't mean that literally. I was just referring to Bill's suggestion that coaches should be able to challenge any play. I'd leave it in their hands and not in an official in the booth or Dean Blandino in his bunker.
I'd go with 2 challenges per team (or 3 if you eliminate the booth challenges inside 2 minutes). If you're 2 for 2, you get another challenge. If you keep getting challenges correct, you keep getting the ability to challenge again. I don't know why they limit it to 3 challenges and then you're done. The team has correctly pointed out 3 times in a row that the officials were wrong and then all of a sudden they can't do that? That doesn't make any sense.
Why be that complicated?
A challenge costs a timeout - you get it right, you get the timeout back. You get it wrong, you don't. No timeouts left, no more challenges. (except ref initiated ones). Counting challenges doesn't really add anything.
I don't really see anything gained by eliminating the right to challenge for getting one wrong. Losing a close challenge shouldn't prevent you from challenging an obvious mistake.
Why should challenges be linked to a timeout necessarily?
I get the possibility that if it wasn't you could just "challenge" to stop the clock, but I also don't get why being out of timeouts should cause you to lose your ability to challenge a horrible call.
I get the possibility that if it wasn't you could just "challenge" to stop the clock, but I also don't get why being out of timeouts should cause you to lose your ability to challenge a horrible call.
A drop of 25k kids is like one less practice squad player a year. Unless they start paying football players 30k/year there's always going to be enough talent in the league.
I think the point trying to be made was a drop in the over all player pool causes an eventual drop in the over all talent of the league, causes a drop in viewership as talent lags. Though not trying to put words in dirtys fingertips.
I think there needs to be some sort of cost or limit to a failed challenge - otherwise any good coach is going to challenge almost every play that goes against them. Make it a 5 yard penalty if you lose - there has to be some jeopardy though. The timeouts work well because a challenge basically is a timeout already - they stop play, stop the clock, etc.
I just don't think people would even notice. People watch college football, and your average college football team has one or two guys that would even make an NFL roster. It's too easy to make little changes (like moving the point where illegal contact starts back or forward) to alter the effective talent level of offense or defense.
The vast majority of people watching the NFL don't analyze tape - and they believe what Phil Simms is telling them. They LIKE that the camera zooms in on Tom Brady to the exclusion of everything else on passing plays.
Which is why I said if you get a second challenge wrong you lose your ability to challenge. I think tying the ability to challenge to using challenges themselves wisely makes much more sense than tying them to timeouts. Especially considering the usage of them is unnecessary under 2:00 anyway which is the most likely time there could be shenanigans with using a challenge to stop the clock.
I just hate that though. I'd rather have the stoppages than have the sort of thing where a coach challenges something close that's worth challenging, and then the refs totally blow something later in the game
I suppose that's possible with the challenge=timeout system too, just less likely. From my perspective, a failed challenge and a timeout are already essentially the same thing. My ideal system would have some sort of escalating cost where coaches could always challenge a play, but the more you fail, the worse it gets. I'd much rather have a coach making the decision on whether challenging a play is worth a 15 yard penalty, than have a coach not be able to challenge because the refs have already screwed up a bunch of times.
I guess that's my big issue with the current challenge system - it still punishes you even if you're right.
I'm reading most of you really caring that every single call be exactly right. I think that's cool but at what cost? The NFL already has the worst game flow with all the commercials.
The worst is the league going all Plato's cave on what a catch is and then the surrounding arguments.
Maybe the refs shouldn't be allowed to look at slow mo replays. I don't know. People still argue about calls almost as much as they did before it was instituted.
The worst is the league going all Plato's cave on what a catch is and then the surrounding arguments.
Maybe the refs shouldn't be allowed to look at slow mo replays. I don't know. People still argue about calls almost as much as they did before it was instituted.
But there are also plenty of times coaches (hi Rex!) blow challenges on plays that aren't even close. And they shouldn't be rewarded for those stupid decisions.