NFL to vote on making all plays reviewable
Don’t hold your breath, but NFL owners will mull a radical new rule proposal that would allow coaches to challenge all plays.
Everything. Even if a penalty wasn’t called.
In a conference call Thursday, NFL senior VP of officiating Dean Blandino said the Buffalo Bills and Seattle Seahawks are proposing this video review amendment.
“That is a significant change to our current replay rule, and it is something that will be on the floor, and be debated and voted on next week,” Blandino said.
The league’s annual meeting begins Sunday in Phoenix and will conclude Wednesday. At least 75 per cent of owners (24 of 32) must approve any rule or bylaw change.
NFL coaches cannot challenge judgment calls such as offensive holding or defensive pass interference, whereas for the past three seasons CFL coaches have been able to challenge the latter.
Rest assured, the controversial NFL proposal will be debated, and likely voted down. The influential competition committee is especially conservative on the issue of expanding replay to the chagrin, even outrage, of many coaches.
Still, that this proposal has the backing of two teams gives it more than just quack-idea weight, and could prove a catalyst in the eventual — probably inevitable — expansion of video replay.
In all, 15 new rules proposals — submitted either by the competition committee, or by individual or allied clubs — will go before owners next week.
The likeliest rules to pass are always those proposed by the competition committee. This year there are eight such proposals.
One, announced by commissioner Roger Goodell Wednesday, would switch the responsibility of deciding video reviews from an on-field referee to the NFL’s videoreplay command centre.
Probably the most notable among the other seven rule proposals, this one put forth by the Philadelphia Eagles, would be the elimination of the “leaper” on place-kicks. That is, the uber-athletic defender who tries to perfectly time a leap over the long snapper and into the backfield to block the field goal or PAT attempt. Blandino said the concern is player safety.
Most other competition committee proposals are geared to help speed up the game. One proposal would fix the time between the end of the first half and putting the ball in play for the second-half kickoff at precisely 13 minutes, 30 seconds. The time now is 12 minutes, but there are “built-in delay times,” Blandino said, that often can add several more minutes.
Other committee proposals would:
Extend by another year the oneyear experiment of having the ball come out to the 25-yard line after a touchback, instead of to the 20.
Make permanent last year’s experiment to eject a player upon receiving his second unsportsmanlike conduct foul in the same game.
Make it illegal for a defender to hit a defenceless pass receiver in his route.
Included in the proposals submitted by clubs are: Washington asked to increase the number of coaching challenges; Philadelphia asked to better protect the long snapper and to expand the designated crown-of-the-helmet area, for personal-foul determinations.