You gotta be f**king kidding me

[Pugger]

M3 in press conference said he saw one shot of Nelson's non catch and thought he maintained control. Threw flag on his own. After he threw it, knew he should't have after seeing 2nd replay.

Nearly did not challenge Graham TD because he only had one left and waited until last possible moment. After film still certain about that one.

Thought he would have had grounds to review Sproles if he had another challenge. Was told whistle blew and down by contact, but said Moses and all other players are taught to get ball regardless of whistle and get up with it and hand it back to ref to reduce the chance of an unclear recovery being called.

Also said MD Jennings had radio in helmet. Which seems odd, but thought that whoever got the radio next (Burnett, McMillan?) would not have been as comfortable relaying signals off it and might have contributed to late or confused calls.

Good God. Somebody take the hankie away from him...

[Little Whiskey]

For me there are two main issues.

1. The official on the field reviews the call.

This slows things down as he has to saunter over to the review booth only after announcing this to everyone.

The official may have misunderstood the rule in the first instance and only compound the problem.

This also is like having an internal review carried out by the people being reviewed. Not usually a good idea.

2. Only one person does the review.

On any one given call someone will disagree. That means that even though 70% of officials might make the call one way, you might get the other 30%.

Any one person can easily miss things that happen and/or not recognize the full implication of a rule.

My solution would be to have a group of 3 dedicated replay officials do all reviews. They can confer with each other and vote on the call. 2 out of 3 gets the call. This would help reduce the one-off calls be having multiple opinions. Also having the decision upstairs should speed things up. Finally, subjective decisions are usually improved by discussing the basis behind the decision.

The problem with this solution is the time needed to bring a decision. it takes long enough with 1 guy looking at the reply. imagine 3 guys watching then debating the call, especially now that they have increased the number of plays replayed.

I like the idea of the official in the booth making the call.

[pbmax]

Don't know if this is related but Clay was screaming at the sideline after one play. It looked like he was pissed about not getting the calls in on time.

Yes, there was a problem. Burnett had the radio instead of Smith because they planned to use the Dollar package and that meant no Smith. Capers said it caused problems on the second drive for the defense. After that, the dollar was scrapped because of Doc Jennings injury.

[sharpe1027]

The problem with this solution is the time needed to bring a decision. it takes long enough with 1 guy looking at the reply. imagine 3 guys watching then debating the call, especially now that they have increased the number of plays replayed.

I like the idea of the official in the booth making the call.

I'm not so sure. First, having it in the booth will help speed things up. Second and as someone else posted, this isn't rocket science. You can only view a replay so many times. The rest is just trying to interpret what you saw. I can't remember a call that I truly needed the entire replay time to make up my mind.

You could always just give them a time limit. It could be, for example, a soft time that is their target time (say 2 minutes) and a hard time that they absolutely cannot go over (say 5 minutes).

Either way, I think it would be an improvement.

[smuggler]

It was an obvious fumble. On top of that, since Green Bay clearly recovered, if it had been ruled as a fumble on the field, New Orleans would have had a free review. It was just a horrible call to make.

[mraynrand]

I like the idea of the official in the booth making the call.

The peep show is a huge waste of time

[Pugger]

If they call it a fumble and decide who recovered it, guess what, the saints in turn can challenge if it was down. Don't they also review all turnovers now? Ref copped out. Call it the other way and they can get it right.

Yes, but the whole problem with that Sproles fumble is some goofball zebra blew the whistle so the play cannot be reviewed. I thought those bozos were supposed to not be so quick on the whistle. And how can he be down by contact when he was still very much upright before the ball came out? He was still moving forward along with the tacklers. All I can say is Triplette and his band of fools are the worst crew in the game.

[gbgary]

that's better than "what the hell is going on out here?" but sadly it's not going become as famous. lol

[smuggler]

Yes, but the whole problem with that Sproles fumble is some goofball zebra blew the whistle so the play cannot be reviewed. I thought those bozos were supposed to not be so quick on the whistle. And how can he be down by contact when he was still very much upright before the ball came out? He was still moving forward along with the tacklers. All I can say is Triplette and his band of fools are the worst crew in the game.

They changed the rule a few years back. The whistle no longer ends a play with regards to a fumble recovery. It can't be advanced, however.

[Pugger]

They changed the rule a few years back. The whistle no longer ends a play with regards to a fumble recovery. It can't be advanced, however.

I can't recall right now - did they review that play then?

[channtheman]

I'm actually leaning towards getting rid of reviews. What is always touted when speaking in favor of review? Getting the call right. Well, when the play is reviewed and they still get it wrong, I see no reason to review. Just call the game on the field and get rid of challenges and all reviews.

EDIT: (I know this will never happen.)

[Smidgeon]

I can't recall right now - did they review that play then?

I think they said it couldn't be overturned because no camera angle had direct evidence the Packers recovered. I'm not sure I buy that, but that's what they said.