
With the NFL adjusting the officiating procedures for the 2015 postseason, the question becomes whether those changes will become a permanent fixture for the NFL as of the 2016 regular season.
Per a league source with knowledge of the situation, the NFL will not be implementing the new protocol for the 2016 regular season. However, it’s expected that the owners will approve in March the continued use of the new system for all postseason play, in 2016 and beyond.
Earlier this week, the Competition Committee recommended unanimously for the 2015 playoffs the expanded use of the communication system previously installed to allow the league office to assist the referee during replay review. Starting in the wild-card round, NFL V.P. of officiating Dean Blandino will be able to assist referees with administrative issues relating to three key areas: (1) proper down and distance; (2) penalty enforcement; and (3) game-clock issues. That process won’t be adopted for use during the regular season because it will be difficult if not impossible to properly oversee the various administrative issues arising in the many games that begin at 1:00 p.m. ET and 4:05 p.m. ET/4:25 p.m. ET — without expanding the responsibilities well beyond Blandino and his primary lieutenant for these issues, former NFL on-field official Al Riveron.
The league considered exploring the expanded use of the pipeline from the league office for regular-season stand-alone games only, but the concern is that extra attention given to, for example, prime-time games would create a competitive disadvantage with respect to the teams playing during the Sunday afternoon time slots.
That said, the pipeline could be used, from time to time, to correct administrative errors during regular-season games. As one source explained it to PFT, the league sought formal permission to utilize the communication system for administrative assistance in part because the league office periodically had been using it for that purpose, discreetly and without express authorization.
To summarize, the unauthorized use of the communication system to address administrative errors during regular-season games has resulted in the authorized use of the communication system to address administrative errors in postseason games. And that will make the unauthorized use of the communication system to address administrative errors in future regular-season games more likely.