With offensive and defensive pass interference now within the universe of plays subject to replay review, the far more important question is how replay review will apply to OPI and DPI.
“The important thing is establishing a standard,” former NFL senior V.P. of officiating Dean Blandino tells Peter King of Football Morning in America. “There is already so much pressure in that job anyway. I doubt you’ll see a lot of calls overturned. My feeling is there is so much contact downfield the standard will have to be high to overturn the call, or to give a pass-interference penalty when one wasn’t called on the field.”
Although the reality is that applying the standard will be every bit as important as establishing it (more on that in a minute), the fact that King’s comprehensive look at how the rules came to be changed to include replay review of pass interference doesn’t include an explanation of the standard that was established (meaning that no standard was established) further underscores the problems inherent to a process that Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay half-jokingly, half-proudly referred to as making sausage in one day.
There’s a reason the sausage was made in one day. Instead of properly anticipating the expectations of coaches, owners, and (apparently) the Commissioner at the league meetings, McKay’s committee focused on coming up with what they wanted, without regard to figuring out what those who would be voting on the proposals wanted. In other words, instead of figuring out which way the wind was blowing, McKay and company tried to become the wind. And it didn’t work.
As a result, the hastily-applied Arizona elbow grease left too many questions unanswered, questions that need to be answered before the next round of ownership meetings conclude in May. The standard, apparently, is the first question to be addressed.
Of course, there’s already a standard. Whatever the label -- indisputable visual evidence, clear and obvious error, etc. -- the 50-drunks-in-a-bar barometer becomes critically important when trying to parse through the shoves and grabs and yanks and pulls that may or may not be regarded in real time as pass interference.
It could become much harder to the apply the standard when reviewing a call of pass interference than when reviewing a non-call. With a non-call, a remote flag would presumably be dropped only in the most obvious situations, like when Nickell Robey-Coleman blew up Tommylee Lewis in the play that sparked the change. When interference is called on the field, the ruling must stand unless the replays shows no contact of any kind, making it essentially a phantom foul.
Still, current NFL senior V.P. of officiating Al Riveron must apply this standard consistently and efficiently. As explained last week here, and as reiterated by King, Riveron’s job instantly has gotten a lot harder -- possibly making it a job too big for Riveron, who was struggling to keep up with the demands of replay review without pass interference added to the list of plays that are reviewed and either reversed or not reversed by him. Blandino himself has said that the league doesn’t properly value the job. The league had better start valuing it now, or it will cause more problems than it solves.
And that’s just the start. After established a standard and ensuring that it will properly be applied, nuances like policing pick plays, resisting the temptation to declare a do-over by calling offsetting fouls in close cases, and figuring out what is and isn’t interference on Hail Mary plays will need to be addressed, with clear standards adopted.
These things weren’t considered during the sausage-making party that reduced what should have been a two-month cook to the two-day annual meeting at which the Competition Committee arrived woefully unprepared for the reaction that McKay should have known was waiting, if he’d spent more time reading the tea leaves and less time trying to write on them.
That’s really the lesson to be learned moving forward. When a controversial play sparks widespread calls for change, the Competition Committee needs to do less time resisting the inevitable and more time planning for ensuring that it translates to the best possible outcome, with all issues and sub-issues addressed at the time the revised rule is adopted.