Over the weekend, we reported that the NFL has been discussing and will continue to discuss the possibility of taking replay review out of stadiums and moving it to a central location.
On Wednesday, at a quarterly ownership meeting in Dallas, Commissioner Roger Goodell acknowledged that such a change is being considered.
Per Albert Breer of NFL Network, Goodell acknowledged that V.P. of officiating Dean Blandino could be directly involved in the replay function.
“Our number one focus is to make sure we’re providing the best officiating,” Goodell said, via NFL.com. “We always think we can improve. Consistency is important. By bringing it into the league office on Sundays and having one person actually making that decision, you can make an argument there’s consistency.”
It looks like that one person would be Blandino. And that makes sense. Since he’s the one who draws the short straw when it comes to explaining the mistakes made by guys like Jeff Triplette, why not just have Blandino make the decisions in the first instance, under circumstances far more conducive to making an efficient and ultimately reliable decision?