Now after all the whispers, and rumors, and explanations, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has commented on the NFC Championship pass interference No-call.
The comment, taken from Ian Rapoport is below:
Roger Goodell, on the #Saints missed call: “We understand the frustration they feel. Whenever the officiating is part of a discussion, it’s not a good thing. But we also know our officials are human. ... We will look again at instant replay, should replay be expanded?”
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 30, 2019
The missed call remains one of the more egregious calls in recent memory and the NFL still hasn’t shrugged off the mob of New Orleans Saints fans—and football Fans by extension. There have been several opinions about it, including some from San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan. There are reports that the league will look into making PI subject to review , but now that it’s coming from the commissioner’s mouth it’s going to hold some water.
Review or not, expanding replay could make things more difficult. It still could be just as efficient to have one person watching the game who can stop things for “Review time-outs” and have these replace the random TV timeouts with shorter commercial breaks, but salted throughout the game. NFL officiating expert Mike Pereira has advocated for a sky judge of sorts, one able to correct a mistake in fifteen seconds. The opportunities to fix things are there.
Reviewing pass interference in and of itself doesn’t fix what has become a lack of accountability among the officiating crew. Human or not, something will need to change or more fans will take the league’s integrity into question—whether it’s a correct action or not.