Overturning a Call with Replay

[Dback Jon]

Literally most Cardinals fans and everyone who wasn’t a Cardinals fan on the broadcast team thought it was.

Nope. Not conclusive enough to overturn.

Broadcast team? What a joke. They were pro-49ers.

 

[Ronin]

Okay. Well, enjoy your pity party I suppose.

Knock off the trolling. 1st warning.

 

[CardLogic]

The rule is very simple. The replay must show “incontrovertible visual evidence.” To avoid confusion, The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines incontrovertible as “not open to question : indisputable.” So I’m watching the SF game and there’s an apparent fumble near the end of the first half. The call on the field is a fumble. Announcer Charles Davis watches the replay and says fumble. He was a four year starter at Tennessee. He was a college coach. He’s been an NFL analyst for 6 years. So how can someone else view that replay and say a forearm touch is “indisputable.” Davis mentioned that body part and said it didn’t touch. Clearly it’s not obvious.

Replay officials now substitute their judgment for that of the game officials. They don’t look for mistakes. Instead they just state an opinion. They supplant the field official’s call with their own impression. That’s not how the rule was written. The process should be changed. The official who makes the calls should view all the replays. The appeal official can simultaneously view them. If the official who made the call changes his opinion, the call is reversed. The appeal official can clarify the rules, but the game official makes calls. If in this case the forearm appears to the appeal official to touch, he can only tell the game official “a forearm touch means he’s down.” He can’t say he sees a touch. That’s not his job. He can’t overrule the call.

This process is out of control and the league needs to step in and support game officials. By the way this process is handled even more poorly in college.

I don't care to rehash this one particular call, it's already history. But I do agree with what Harry has stated about how calls are adjudicated in the NFL, and how it could be improved.

That and; though the NCAA method of handling reviewed calls may be a more convoluted method, it does seem to me that the NCAA eventually gets the call correct at a much greater percentage than the NFL! And it boggles my mind that the NFL can't seem to be correct nearly as often as the NCAA. Which of course then proffers the notion, in the NFL, is it more about getting the call correct, or getting the desired outcome?