During his press conference in New York City on Friday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked about taking replay review away from the stadiums and moving it to a centralized location.
It’s something that’s been on the radar for a couple of months with the league sending someone to look at the way the NHL runs their centralized replay system in Toronto in November, and Goodell said Friday that it is something the NFL Competition Committee will consider. Patriots owner Robert Kraft isn’t a member of that group, but threw his support behind centralized replay.
“I personally like the idea of centralized [replay],” Kraft said, via Tom Curran of CSN New England. “I’m not sure how the league feels. I think games should be standardized and we should have the same people making the calls. We don’t ever want to lose a game based on an interpretation of a rule, correct or not. If we earn [a win], then we should get it. I just don’t want to see it happen because of poor interpretation of the rules. The more it can be disciplined and structured and centralized I would be in support of that.”
Kraft pointed out a pair of games against the Jets and Panthers from this season that the Patriots lost because of what Kraft thought was an inconsistent application of the rules. Consistency was also something Goodell mentioned during his press conference and that’s the biggest reason to make a push for a centralized system, even if it is one that offers rules clarification and guidance to officials rather than one that actually makes all of the calls.