Of course I watched it, everyone did. The play that all but ended the Saints’ season was a clear pass interference that saw Rams cornerback Nickel Robey-Coleman launching himself at Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis well before the ball got there. Robey-Coleman even threw in some uncalled helmet-to-helmet action just for good measure.
The play should have given the Saints a 1st and goal with a little more than 1:30 left in the game and the score knotted 20-20. Instead, the Saints kicked a field goal and handed the ball back with a bow on it and all the time Los Angeles needed to push things to overtime. You know the rest.
It was the single worst missed call I’ve ever seen. The play will immediately be placed alongside some of the all-time greatest blown calls in football history, including the Fail Mary in Seattle and the Tuck Rule Game in New England. It’s a total black eye for the NFL, and an absolute disgrace.
Can you tell that I had money on the Saints?
But I’m not here to dissect the refs’ ineptitude – that’s going to be done nonstop for the next week by the bucketheads at ESPN. Instead, I’m here to propose five ways to sweep up the broken glass that is NFL officiating. You tell me which seems the most sensible.
1. Make penalties a challengeable aspect of the game
The reason this has yet to be implemented is because of the sensitivity regarding pace-of-play. While this has been an issue recently in all sports, the NFL has been especially freaked out about it because of their ratings decline over the past few seasons (though this year actually saw a bit of a bounce-back).
The NFL would be stupid to think that potentially adding another 10-15 minutes to the game would be more harmful than continuing to allow bad officiating to decide certain games, especially ones which decide who goes to the Super Bowl.
2. Get rid of the refs altogether
Add another 30 cameras around the stadium and have all of the calls come from the replay center in Secaucus. Yeah, I know there’s a refs’ union. And I also know the head zebras each make around $200,000 a year. But most of them have other jobs too.
Does $200,000 a year really make up for receiving death threats from one-legged Buccaneers fans?
3. Allow the players to police themselves
This would be borrowing a concept from golf. Think of how much time it would’ve saved if, after he interfered with (and possibly concussed) Lewis, Robey-Coleman had walked to the center of the field and turned his mic on to address the crowd.
“Pass interference, me. Half the distance to the goal, first down,” he announced as 60,000 Louisianans roared with delight. “Really respect your honesty, bro,” said Aaron Donald, who ran over to fist-bump his teammate.
4. Eliminate rules
Turn football into an unidentifiable anarchic mess. Whatever is allowed by United States law is permissible for all 60 minutes. Put all 53 men on the field. Have your defensive line start in the opponent’s backfield. Let the cheerleaders punt.
If you want to take this a step further, have every NFL team build a stadium in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where they can be free of any nation’s sovereignty or jurisdiction. Forget pass interference – without the fear of prosecution, we could turn the NFL into Lord of the Flies.
5. Eliminate the NFL
You can’t botch calls in a league that doesn’t exist, right?
Comments
I’d go with #1. Prolonging the game would be limited by fact that lost challenges resulting in lost time outs would make coaches think carefully about frivolous penalty challenges. Even better, limit coaches to 1 or 2 penalty challenges per half.