NFL Replay "issues" in conference championship games

[Senser81]

Ever since Troy Polamalu had his INT overturned in the playoff game against the Colts many years ago, I've always looked at the NFL replay system as a 50/50 proposition. You can look at the play, you can look at all the angles, but in the end you have no idea how the ref will rule on the play. Its a 50/50 chance that he'll make the right call, but its also the same probability that he'll overturn a correct call.

First big replay was at the end of the Falcons-Niners game. Harry Douglas is wide open but he falls down when trying to catch Matt Ryan's pass. Hard to tell what happened in real time. Go to replay, and its clear that while Douglas had one hand under the ball when he initially hits the ground, the ball slides out of Douglas' hand on the turf and ends up getting stuck in his belly/lap region. OK, so with all the NFL rulebook crap, with Calvin Johnson getting a game-winning TD taken away from him a couple years ago against the Bears because he "did not complete the process of the catch", its a pretty easy call that Douglas did not maintain control of the ball throughout the process of the catch. Commercial break.

Everyone I'm watching the game with agrees that its no catch. I am the lone voice of "reason", telling everyone that Terry McAuley makes terrible decisions on replays, and he will allow the catch to stand. Back to the game, McAuley rules the play stands, Jim Harbaugh pitches a fit, and Atlanta is in position to win the game.

Second big replay was Steven Ridley's fumble against the Ravens. Patriots were driving for a tying score in the 4th quarter, Ridley gets knocked out but doesn't lose the ball until after he hits the ground, and Ravens recover. I thought the fumble call was wrong in real time, because you could see that Ridley's legs were on the ground when he fumbled, and that it appeared Ridley lost the ball when his arm hit against his leg. Go to replay, and you can see that Ridley loses the ball when it hits his foot, but after his leg is already on the ground. If anything other than a hand or a foot touches the ground, the ball carrier is down.

Again, everyone I'm watching the game with agrees that its not a fumble, and again I have no confidence that the usually terrible Bill Leavy will make the right call. After replay, the call stands, Ravens ball. Phil Simms, the worst analyst in football, offers no words of objection to this ridiculously bad call and also doesn't understand the rules (go figure). I don't know if the Patriots had it in them to win the game, but this call basically ended their chances because it took the ball away from them and also ate up a bunch of time on the clock.

 

[jms493]

send it to Roger in an electronic mail message.

 

[RosettaStoned]

I thought the Riddley play was a fumble. IIRC, the ball actually hit his knee, not his foot, and it was a split second before his leg hit the ground.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

The fumble call was the worst. There was nothing to really make you believe it was a fumble, it was clear Ridley was down. Immediately, most of the Ravens fan on my Facebook turned into Pete Carroll, saying it was a fumble, just like he did with Tate's "catch" against the Packers.

 

[JeremyHight]

The NFL should really go the NHL route and have replays reviewed by the league office. These guys are looking at huge screens, HD, can see everything clearly, and don't have the fans screaming and yelling what they think. Simple fix and makes it so a bad official doesn't change the game entirely.

 

[killgod]

I don't know about the Ridley play, blame the wonky NFL rules. I'd lean fumble if I had a gun to my head.

What part of the body counts as down? I don't know, neither does the zebras.

 

[Senser81]

I don't know about the Ridley play, blame the wonky NFL rules. I'd lean fumble if I had a gun to my head.

What part of the body counts as down? I don't know, neither does the zebras.

Anything other than a hand or a foot counts as down. To me, it looked like Ridley's calf was on the ground before he fumbled.

Found the play on youtube...

You get a decent angle at the 0:16 mark. Viewing it again, it does look like a close play. But I still think the back of his leg/calf is on the ground before the ball is knocked loose from Ridley's grip by his foot. If you stop it at the 0:19 mark, you can see the back of his sock on the ground before the ball makes contact with his foot.

 

[jms493]

You got to remember they are less likely to overturn calls made on the field unless there is indisputable evidence. That doesn't look like indisputable evidence to me. As you can see we are all have different opinions here. I say fumble.

 

[Glenbino]

The NFL should really go the NHL route and have replays reviewed by the league office. These guys are looking at huge screens, HD, can see everything clearly, and don't have the fans screaming and yelling what they think. Simple fix and makes it so a bad official doesn't change the game entirely.

I actually don't think this is a bad idea I just wonder how feasible it would be to implement. If the replay booth inside the stadium can sometimes be too late in calling for a review when a team runs to the line to snap the ball after a questionable play, I wonder how much more often this would occur if the call for the review came from a proxy location.

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[Tailback U]

In these close call situations, the only thing that matters is the ruling on the field. That's really all there is to it.

 

[ralaw]

I thought Douglas caught that pass and I thought Ridley fumbled.

 

[wr50l]

I actually don't think this is a bad idea I just wonder how feasible it would be to implement. If the replay booth inside the stadium can sometimes be too late in calling for a review when a team runs to the line to snap the ball after a questionable play, I wonder how much more often this would occur if the call for the review came from a proxy location.

Good point. The NHL way is different because it only ever reviews goals, so naturally there is a rather long stoppage before play is restarted; it is certainly longer than 40 seconds. Additionally, they can carry on play and then go back to the issue once the whistle blows play dead, regardless of how much time has elapsed. This certainly doesn't fit in well with the NFL model of quarterbacks rushing to get the next play started before their gain can be challenged. On the other hand, you could counter that by giving the coaches challenges inside the final two minutes of each half, which might solve the problem.

In any case I think it's generally agreeable that the current set-up of the replay review in the NFL is not ideal for getting a correct and unbiased decision.

 

[RobbyB34]

I thought Douglas caught that pass and I thought Ridley fumbled.

That catch is why Douglas will always be a #3 WR. Because he lost his feet...

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

First big replay was at the end of the Falcons-Niners game. Harry Douglas is wide open but he falls down when trying to catch Matt Ryan's pass. Hard to tell what happened in real time. Go to replay, and its clear that while Douglas had one hand under the ball when he initially hits the ground, the ball slides out of Douglas' hand on the turf and ends up getting stuck in his belly/lap region. OK, so with all the NFL rulebook crap, with Calvin Johnson getting a game-winning TD taken away from him a couple years ago against the Bears because he "did not complete the process of the catch", its a pretty easy call that Douglas did not maintain control of the ball throughout the process of the catch. Commercial break.

Everyone I'm watching the game with agrees that its no catch. I am the lone voice of "reason", telling everyone that Terry McAuley makes terrible decisions on replays, and he will allow the catch to stand. Back to the game, McAuley rules the play stands, Jim Harbaugh pitches a fit, and Atlanta is in position to win the game.

I don't have an opinion on this particular play, because much like I have no idea what constitutes a legal block or a legal tackle anymore, I have no idea what constitutes a legal catch.

The NFL rules are now totally ambiguous and impossible to decipher. Ironically, the league has pushed to take judgement out of the officials hands, yet the rules have never been more open to the interpretation of the officials.

Helmet to helmet hits are called at random at the discretion of the officials. You see bullshit helmet to helmet calls where the defender uses good tackling form and the top or back of his helmet barely grazes the face mask or helmet of the QB or WR, and then two plays later you see full on violent helmet to helmet contact with no call (example - the Ridley play being discussed in this thread, where Ridley was the victim of a helmet to helmet KO blow).

I have no idea what players are allowed to do anymore in terms of open field blocking. The rules are so convoluted I don't bother trying to understand them, plus like most of these other calls i'm sure they are being botched anyway.

But the worst, is catch/no catch and catch/fumble/no catch. Every official interprets this differently, and it's maddening. Years ago, it was pretty simple. Aside from the very rare really close play, we all know if somebody caught the ball or not. And this is how officials ruled. They blew a few sometimes, but that's ok. Then, the league tried to fix this by introducing the "football move". This was the start of the slippery slope, but still pretty easy to understand. But now, we have the "complete the process" bullshit that NOBODY understands and means something different to every official. We've all see WR's catch a ball, take three steps with it, have it stripped away, but have it called incomplete. Huh? Or a WR catch a ball, tuck it away, land on his back, ball pops out. Incomplete. Huh?

The league does everything in it's power to eliminate fumbles. We stare at replays for 10 minutes trying to determine if a WR made enough football moves or completed his process (whatever that means), we freeze frame replays to see if knees touch a fraction of a second before the ball moves in the ball carriers hands, we make every excuse for QB's arm moving forward (and boy is this rule interpreted liberally sometimes) when he is stripped (not to mention the tuck rule that nobody understands), etc.

I remember John Madden's last year in the booth, he lamented during some endless replay, "Remember when a fumble was a fumble, and a catch was a catch? I just want a fumble to be a fumble. We probably blew some calls back then, but that's ok. Hold onto the ball."

 

[jms493]

I think all these rulez have been added because with the inception of HD Cameras and TVs and super slo-motion and 12 different replay cameras we found out how many calls the refs were missing. Now we have all these crazy rule amendments and a replay system that is so complicated that its actually making it worse.

 

[RosettaStoned]

Helmet to helmet hits are called at random at the discretion of the officials. You see bullshit helmet to helmet calls where the defender uses good tackling form and the top or back of his helmet barely grazes the face mask or helmet of the QB or WR, and then two plays later you see full on violent helmet to helmet contact with no call (example - the Ridley play being discussed in this thread, where Ridley was the victim of a helmet to helmet KO blow).

This one is easy. Riddley wasn't a victim.. he's the one that lowered his head. And even if he didn't, he's a runner, not a receiver so helmet to helmet is irrelevant.

I do agree with pretty much everything else though.

 

[ralaw]

I am surprised Tom Brady's kick slide to Ed Reed's knee isn't a bigger story. He should be fined for that.

 

[killgod]

In short, I want replay gone at this point.


1) It's not really working because of the whole structure. The convoluted and open to interpretation rulebook. The "well you can't change your (wrong) call unless you have a certain degree of proof". What you can and can't challenge. Just fuck off.

2) The delays. 2 minutes here, 5 minutes here. Sometimes it's the ref/coach talking for 2-3 minutes. Then the ref says, "ok challenge, timeout" cause he's being buzzed so they can get another commercial break in. Then they get back to it. Oh but no, they don't know where to spot the ball, so lets talk about it some more. All the while you have to listen to cunty Simms or Dierdorf ramble on about god knows what, only to not only be wrong in what they say, but even to have the ref go in a different direction.


I'd rather the refs just do their best and if shit happens, it fucking happens, but at least I won't be aggravated and annoyed with 15-20 minutes of time wasting about replays.

 

[killgod]

I am surprised Tom Brady's kick slide to Ed Reed's knee isn't a bigger story. He should be fined for that.

I agree. I don't even understand the why behind it.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

This one is easy. Riddley wasn't a victim.. he's the one that lowered his head. And even if he didn't, he's a runner, not a receiver so helmet to helmet is irrelevant.

I do agree with pretty much everything else though.

I don't disagree with that, but the problem to me is that the NFL pushes safety safety safety, yet the heads of some players are deemed more important than the heads of others.

It's a dog & pony show.