Goodell stops short of endorsing replay expansion
Commissioner addresses big officiating gaffe
Roger Goodell has urged the NFL’s competition committee to consider expanding video replays.
But that isn’t enough. The commissioner has stopped short of personally endorsing such an expansion. And that’s a shame.
Because when Roger wants a rule changed, know what happens? The rule gets changed.
As we saw last year with the elimination of the dreaded survive-the-ground element of the catch rule. And as we saw a year before that with passage of a rule automatically disqualifying any player upon being flagged twice in a game for unsportsmanlike conduct.
At his annual state-ofthe-league news conference during Super Bowl week, Goodell on Wednesday addressed a slew of questions about the fallout from one of the league’s all-time most embarrassing officiating gaffes, with under two minutes left in the Jan. 20 NFC championship game.
On the 3rd-and-10 play from the Rams’ 13-yard line, at least two game officials in close proximity did not flag Los Angeles defender Nickell Robey-Coleman with pass interference, even though he clobbered New Orleans Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis long before the ball from quarterback Drew Brees arrived. If the Rams had been properly penalized, the Saints would have been awarded a 1st-and-goal at the L.A. six-yard line with 1:45 remaining, and not only would have had at least three cracks at scoring a go-ahead touchdown, but could have run off much or most of the remaining time in the game, as the Rams had but one timeout left.
As it was, the Saints had to kick a field goal on fourth down to take a 23-20 lead, but the Rams had enough time to drive for a game-tying field goal at the end of regulation, then won the game and Super Bowl berth in overtime with another long field goal.
Goodell confirmed Wednesday that the NFL’s senior VP of officiating, Al Riveron, called Saints head coach Sean Payton immediately after the game to admit that pass interference should have been called, but officials messed it up.
Those who loves the Saints in the Gulf Coast area — from the far eastern Texas shoreline to the Florida Panhandle — remain livid that their team got robbed of what would have been only its second Super Bowl berth.
Going forward, Goodell said that the purview of replay reviews is being addressed by ownership’s consulting body on all matters pertaining to game rules and bylaws: the competition committee.
Most of the NFL’s 32 owners rely heavily on recommendations made by that group when voting on proposed changes.
The committee comprises select coaches, GMs, owners and club executives, including Saints coach Payton.