By: Brian Thevenot
(LAtimes Saints, no-call)
Boy, the National Football League (NFL) has come a long way since “What is a catch”. Last year in the NFC (National Football Conference) championship game, New Orleans against the Los Angeles Rams, with about one minute and forty five seconds left in the fourth quarter, tied at twenty, the most infamous non-call in NFL history was made. The Los Angeles Rams cornerback Nickel Robey-Coleman hit the wide open receiver in the head with his helmet (which is a foul within itself) and interfered “... with an eligible receiver's ability to make a fair attempt to catch a forward pass.” Or in other words, pass interference. The referee was looking right at the play as it happened and even conversed with another official, just to inevitably hold back his whistle. To pour salt on the wound, it was on third down and the Saints had to settle for a field goal, and eventually lose 26-23 by a game winning field goal in overtime by Greg Zuerlein. This sent the Rams to the Superbowl and the Saints home.
This non-call sent shock waves not just through New Orleans, but through the entire NFL. What made things worse was the fact the NFL league office immediately called Saints head coach (Sean Payton) and said “They blew the call.” The talk of the entire sports world right after the game was “The wrong team went to the Superbowl”. The city of New Orleans actually tried to sue the NFL on the grounds of “alleged the NFL and the game officials engaged in a conspiracy and committed fraud and deceptive trade practices” and sought $75,000 in damages.” As a result of all of the backlash, in the league meetings taken place during March, all 32 NFL owners took a vote to allow coaches to be able to challenge offensive and defensive pass interference. It passed 31-1 with the Cincinnati Bengals being the lone nah-vote.
While most people knew that this would not be a one hundred percent fix, most analyst did think that it would make it almost impossible for the infamous non-call to happen again. Boy were they wrong. As of week 12 in the 2019 NFL season, there have been 77 pass interference challenges / reviews. However, of the 77, only 15 has been overturned. 7 out of the 15 has that been overturned wasn’t even from coaches challenge, but official review.
(Larry Brown Sports) One of the Many non-overturned pass interference calls
Fortunately, this new rule is only for a one year trial basis. That leaves consumers with wondering the question “Now what?” This is because if we take out the rule than egregious blown calls like the one in the NFC Championship game would be able to occur again. However, if we keep the rule, than it seems like the blown calls will STILL happen. So to better grasp at the transition the NFL is going through, I reached out to ESPN sports analyst Steveland Wilson on the issues at hand and how he believes the NFL should handle these major problems.
To go full circle, I asked Mr.Wilson what he originally thought of the rule change from back in March and he said he thought that it was “A good idea to explore a rule change that could help benefit the game and offer balance to both sides of the ball.” Unfortunately, not just for the NFL, but the for the fans, it had the opposite effect. The new rule didn't just put even more of a spotlight on the pass-interference, but it is now even affecting the outcomes of games even more than before. When a coach challenges pass interference, it counts as a regular challenge, so when they lose, they also lose a timeout which can be the difference between winning and losing the game.
In the interview, I also asked him what the NFL should do about Alberto Riveron, (the Senior Vice President of the NFL officiating) who is the man at the center of the chaos, who has the final say with all of these calls. While the NFL says they are going to look over the entire referring committee, Wilson has a different take. He says that nobody should be fired and that the NFL and its fans should be “patient” and “understand that it’s a hard job and some things are judgment calls.” Wilson later went on to say that “there’s still a lot of grey area to be explored with how pass interference is judged” and it can be fixed.
Now how it can be fixed is an entirely different issue. While there have been many different opinions from getting rid of the rule completely, to firing Al Riveron and his staff, Mr, Wilson has a different approach. He states that, “if the officials get the call on the field right more often, then we wouldn’t even get to the point where we need to challenge the calls at all”. Easier said than done right? Well Mr. Wilson suggests that one way this can be done is by giving “more leeway to defensive backs (DB)considering how challenging it is to defend based on how little you can do to contest the ball.” While this may seem like something simple to implement, this only opens up another can of worms. For example, how much leeway? If we give them too much leeway, than it almost makes it impossible for the receiver to make a catch, but if we completely restrict the defensive back from being able to contact the receiver, it makes it almost impossible for the DB to do his job. The NFL has a lot of thinking to do this off-season on how to make the league watchable again. Because no one wants to talk about how one call change the entire dynamic of an NFL season.
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