sutz":25fekujw said:
rideaducati":25fekujw said:
They need to get one official sitting in front of replay monitors that can determine the ruling of a replay. There is no reason for an official to have to walk to the end of the field and step into a confessional for 5 minutes when a guy already in a booth with monitors could determine the right call within seconds.
Except that was the way it was on the first go-around. Nobody liked decisions being made by that "eye-in-the-sky" and they suspended replay for several years, until after the Testaverde helmet bungle against us. Then they re-instated replay, but put a lot of constraints on it so it seemed less like the NFL was going all Skynet on the games. They limited the number of situations subject to replay and set up the booth for the on-field Head Ref to make the calls.
I don't have a problem with an additional guy watching video full time in some kind of advisory capacity, but nobody (except apparently you) wants decisions made by some yoyo in New York over the guys actually on the field. I think it isn't actually that bad, although I do support a thorough review of the rule book to simplify it and make it more understandable.
Except on that first go-round they had way fewer cameras and certainly nothing like HD monitors. With today's technology – including GPS trackers, etc. – the case could be made that the only reason to have refs on the field at all is to place the ball, announce the calls, and break up fights.
And it's not necessary to consolidate everything to New York. They could have 2 on field, and have the other 5 refs in the stadium watching their assigned areas like they already do, but on screens with multiple angles instantaneously. Of course that won't happen overnight, but 10 years from now? I wouldn't be surprised to see something along those lines.
The way to implement this would be to run a shadow, monitor-based officiating system to gather data. After each week, the central office looks at the info regarding number of penalties, grades for crews, time spent on replays, etc., as compared to the on-field ref performance and determines which areas benefit and which could still be improved.
There's no harm in trying to make the officiating better. It would just take a concerted effort on the part of the $10 billion NFL to train refs, set up the booth, and give it a go. One problem of course is more efficient games (i.e., shorter) result in less ad revenue.
