Even though the coaches got a huge (and unexpected) win on having replay expanded, they didn’t get everything they wanted last week.
According to Peter King of NBC’s Football Morning in America, coaches pushed hard for the league to add the AAF-inspired Sky Judge to current officiating crews.
“Technology is too advanced to leave replay alone,” one coach said in their meeting. “All of America sees a huge mistake that we can do nothing about.”
Having an official in the booth who could call things that are clearer on a high-definition television screen than they are in real time surrounded by large people running makes a certain kind of common sense.
But owners were apparently against the idea for a few reasons, beginning with the fact that there’s a replay official at each game, and that head of officiating Al Riveron has a direct line to each on field ref during replay reviews anyway. (So paying an extra ref seemed like overkill.)
There was also mention of the challenge of getting 17 new Sky Judges trained and operating under the same standards from crew-to-crew.
While it feels like an easy adjustment to make, the pace of NFL evolution is often excruciatingly slow to watch. And with one major change in the rules with pass interference added to the replay world, perhaps it was too much, too soon, and coaches will get what they want (and perhaps need) eventually.