Kevin Klein Live Breaks Down The Superbowl: Coldplay, Poop Commercials, #HotRefs & More
Kevin Klein Live Breaks Down The Superbowl: Coldplay, Poop Commercials, #HotRefs & More
Who was there? All kinds of people from the Bay Area and beyond attended the Super Bowl yesterday. Steph Curry was in full Panthers gear beating a giant drum like a Taiko drumming extraordinaire. He looked adorable as usual, but didn’t love the outcome as much as his fellow athletes. NBA star Kevin Durant was at the game, but he was credentialed as a photographer, proving it’s easier to become…
About a half an hour ago I got a text from a good friend of mine.
This is one of my oldest pals, a founding father of my fantasy football league, a guy who’s wedding I was in… you get the picture, we go way back.
My friend, we’ll call him Jason, is a pretty bold dude. He’s a swashbuckler when it comes to fantasy football. “Hey man I’ll give you Pierre Thomas for Matt Forte. It really makes sense…
The Voice of Reason: Five for Fighting ... in the NFL?
The Voice of Reason: Five for Fighting … in the NFL?
Our beloved, NFL, formerly known as the National Football League, may be changing its acronym.
It could be the, No Fun League, or the Not For Long league, possibly the, Non-Functioning League!
Perhaps the best acronym would be the NUMEROUS FLAG LEAGUE! To help illustrate my point, let me show you this table. It displays the number of penalties called per season, for the past five years, and the…
Last night's Monday Night Football game was outstanding --- a well-played, back-and-forth match-up between two talented teams. Carolina held on the beat New England 24-20.
Today, almost all of the talk is about the final play of the game. It's about a non-call by the officials that easily could have been avoided.
The question is --- Will the NFL take action?
Trailing by four with 3-seconds left, the Patriots had the ball at the Carolina 18-yard line, needing a touchdown on the last play. Tom Brady threw a pass into the end zone intended for tight end Rob Gronkowski. On the play, Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly wrapped his arms around Gronkowski at the back half of the end zone as the ball was in the air. The pass was intercepted in front of them. After throwing a flag for pass interference, the official making the call conferred with the rest of the crew. He wanted to know if they thought Gronkowski could have made a play on the ball. That's because, by rule, contact that would normally be considered pass interference is allowed if the pass is "clearly uncatchable by the involved players".
After the officiating crew discussed the call, Referee Clete Blakeman announced there was no pass interference and that the game was over. He should have cited the rule and explained the decision so that the fans at the game and those watching and listening would have understood what happened. Instead, all he said was "There is no pass interference. The game is over."
Some NFL Referees have been better than others at giving clear explanations of calls. The NFL should make this a bigger priority with its officials going forward. The fans deserve an explanation, as do the teams involved.
As for Blakeman, he later said that the decision to waive off pass interference was made because the ball was underthrown and that a determination was made that "the ball was intercepted at or about the same time the primary contact against the receiver occurred."
That's where the problem lies. The officials saw the play from various vantage points once, at full speed. We at home got to see the play from many angles over and over again, in slow motion.
If the booth official had been involved in the discussion, he could have told the on-field officials what the replays showed --- that the interference by Kuechly occurred before the ball arrived in the end zone, and well before the interception. The officials likely would have decided to let the interference call stand, rather than waive it off.
Why are such important calls made by officials who have less information on which to make the call, than we do watching at home?
This isn't fair to the teams, the game or the officiating crew.
**********
The NFL does so many things well, but the league won't allow the booth official be a full-game participant of the officiating crew.
It just doesn't make sense.
The current replay system is outdated and inefficient. There is no need for the Referee to leave the field, go under the hood, analyze the replays, and then return to the field to make the call. It takes too long and interrupts the flow of the game.
It's entirely unnecessary.
All that is needed is to change the way the replay official is used. That official in the booth should be able to assist the on-field officials in making calls throughout the game. Replays should be handled entirely by the booth official.
The league should get rid of coaches challenges. Asking coaches to help officiate the game never has made any sense.
As I wrote a couple of years ago in this post, the change will make it faster and more efficient than the current system. It will help with “length-of-game” concerns, and most importantly, it will lead to more accurate calls.
The league is concerned that the official-in-the-booth would be “Big Brother in the Sky”, too far removed from the field. They view it as undermining the authority of the on-field officials.
Mike Pereira was the NFL’s Vice President of Officiating for 6-years before joining Fox Sports coverage of the NFL. He has agreed with the league and been against having booth officials make calls. He has said he favors keeping the calls on the field with the referee in charge.
I have argued against this thinking for years and I have an ally in Jim Tunney.
Tunney was one of the leagues’s best referees from 1967 to 1991. He was there when replay was first used.
He was a guest with me on ESPN Radio a couple of years ago and said he believes making the call from the booth is a good idea because that official is working with video all the time.
He understands Pereira’s concerns but says the change would benefit officials and the game because it would help result in the right call and reduce the time it takes to make it.
With the advancement in replay technology, the lNFL must change its stance on this.
Every time an officiating mistake is shown in slow motion, it undermines the credibility of the officials. They are made to look foolish, since the mistakes are so easy to see in slow motion.
That isn't right.
If we expect game officials to make the correct calls, then the leagues in every sport must give them the best tools available to do their jobs.
