LEAGUE ADDRESSES DELAY OF GAME ISSUE

Though NFL V.P. of officiating Mike Pereira didn’t come out and say that Terry McAulay’s officiating crew screwed up by failing to throw a flag for delay of game to kill what turned out to be a key play on what turned out to be the game-winning drive in Baltimore’s playoff win over Tennessee, Pereira came pretty darn close. “It is probably a little long,” Pereira told Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean, in reference to the amount of time that the play clock displayed a large zero without a whistle being blown. (It’s unknown whether Wyatt responded to Pereira’s remark by saying, “That’s what she said.”) “It wasn’t as long as the three seconds that was portrayed when you slow it down in slow motion. When you bring it back in real time I think I timed it at about .65 seconds,’' Pereira said. “The question is, how long is a little long?” Pereira acknowledged that it’s up to the Competition Committee to recommend new procedures (such as the popular “Is that a buzzer in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” idea that was widely circulated this week). But it’s pretty clear that Pereira realizes, along with the rest of the football-watching world, that the current protocol has to go. “It is a race,” Pereira said, "[the back judge] has to get to the play clock and back to the field, and the beat is probably just a little bit too long.’' In our view, any beat is too long. When the play clock reads zero, the action immediately should stop. And another change needs to be made -- the question of whether the ball was snapped before the clock struck zero needs to always be subject to replay review.