It’s time. It was already time. The time is definitely now.
Technology is there to get it right. The only question is whether the NFL will take the leap – write a check.
The ball must be equipped with a digital component that can accurately measure whether a player scores a touchdown or, in connection with Sunday night’s AFC Championship, a first down.
The current system is too incomplete. And those flaws were on display tonight. To determine how far the runner leaves the ball, he uses his eyes and feet to look through and around his body.
As CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore said, it looked like quarterback Josh Allen Got the ball on the line to score The Bills led 22-21 before he was pulled backwards on the fourth and short of the fourth quarter.
It’s hard to make a good spot in real time, and even harder to tell if Allen made it on replay review.
A separate issue, of course, is the lack of transparency in the NFL’s replay review process. Who is making the decisions? Who will be in the room when the decision is made? What angle are they looking at?
Ultimately, there is no reason to rely on the frailty of human estimates. There’s a lot riding on the outcome of these games for the league to not exactly invest in.
they can do it. they need to do it. A flawed call in such situations will always hurt one team and help the other, but that’s not the way to ensure consistent accuracy. Or to make sure that the team that won the game really earned it outright.
If the Buffalo drive had continued, the Chiefs would still have won. Importantly, the league’s stubborn insistence that officials must rely on what they think they see and yield to technology that has the potential to erase all doubt.
Everyone should want that. The league won’t choose to do it until the NFL feels enough pressure from teams, the media, fans, and maybe even Congress to fix it.
