Technology is turning everyone into an unrealistic incessant whiner about being "fair". at the end of the day it's still a human making a judgement. Let's ***** about 7 other calls per play because that's all adding more off site officials to call a game on a slow mo delay will do. except the fan at home will either have to sit thru a 6 hour game OR they move it along with the viewer at home won't be able to keep up with all the different calls with their own eyes and they'll eventually tune out.
Frankly, I personnaly don't have a problem with the pace of games or the herky jerky tempo. I record them, watch on delay, and fast forward during the commercials and half time. Of if I don't get the network broadcast I'll do the same on Game Pass. However, it is bad for the game and the typical fan experience, and that is a growing problem.
The games would move faster under the template I propose as it is implemented in phases after preseason tests. In fact, since you don't beta test something in the live marketplace unless you're Elon Musk, you start by running it in the background and fine tune the process in a virtual environment. There are not 7 infractions on every play, but if they are excessive then you send reports and videos to the teams from these dry runs so the players will clean it up. Maybe you do modify or even eliminate some rules in the process. They you reiterate, rinse and repeat, until you get the system ready for prime time.
At the end of the day it
is human judgement, but the quality of any judgement is dependent on the tools and information that goes into it.
The NFL would have to spend money on something they have never wanted to spend money on: quality control. As it stands, they take a defective process and keep layering on more purported "fail safe" reviews and challenges on the back end. They're at the limit. The league, the coaches, the players, the fans, the media, everybody, is now conditioned to evaluate a play in slo-mo replay. The closer you move that to the front end of the process the better results you'll get. Advances in video technology (and more cameras) is analogous to DNA testing. As these technologies have advanced we have become aware of how acutely defective "eye witness testimony" happens to be. We're at the point where the refs don't make certain calls, let the play run, and defer to review. They don't even trust their eye witness testimony.
The second prong of the current quality issues is consistency of interpretation even in slo-mo reveiw. The very least they could do under the current system, which my template would require, is having full time officials. We get two different ex-officials on two different broadcasts coming up with widely varying interpretations of the rules. As LaFleur said, we don't know what pass interference is because of these inconsistencies. You can't herd and drill the cats if all they do is fly in Saturday, pick up a Sunday game check, and fly out to their doctor, lawyer, Indian chief day job.
I suspect they pay local yutzes a game check to man the booths who are charged with doing referrals to New York while understaffing the full time New Yorkers. I suspect, because the video evidence says so, those interminable delays on obvious calls are because the New York teams are momentarily occupied with reviews in other games. At the very least, staff up New York, get rid of the booth middle man, and quit with the commisseration. New York gets the final call anyway. The current process is a deferral to cheapness and the egos of their referees. This proposal alone would shave minutes off the games even if the quality isn't any better or worse.
