Make Pass Interference Reviewable

[Mainefan]

I felt like the Patriots had to beat two teams yesterday--the Bears and the officials.

What are the pros and cons of making pass interference calls reviewable? I think we would have won by another touchdown yesterday if they'd been called fairly.

 

[PatsSox363804]

Every team gets hosed on a bad call or two but in the case of a spot foul they absolutely must review it and get it right, it's too important to the outcome of the game. The NFL has to realize this and either review every P.I. over 20 yards, make it challegeable, or change P.I. to a 15 yard, automatic first penalty except for in the red zone where it could be a spot foul.

 

[jeffd]

I don't like the idea of adding anything to replay, especially automatic review. I like the idea of going to the NCAA version of the rule. Give 'em 15 yds and a first. In the endzone, make it first and goal from the one.

 

[Willie55]

Pass interference should have two levels: flagrant and incidental - just like face mask.

If it's blatant, flagrant PI make it a spot foul.

If it's incidental contact make it a 10-15 yard penalty.

It drives me nuts. Teams just have to throw the ball up and 70% of the time they're going to get a PI call. I'm a firm believer in letting the boys play and any incidental contact is part of the game.

 

[jeffd]

Pass interference should have two levels: flagrant and incidental - just like face mask.

If it's blatant, flagrant PI make it a spot foul.

If it's incidental contact make it a 10-15 yard penalty.

It drives me nuts. Teams just have to throw the ball up and 70% of the time they're going to get a PI call. I'm a firm believer in letting the boys play and any incidental contact is part of the game.

incidental contact is not and should not be a penalty. if it isn't flagrant, let the players play. the rule makes no distinction between the reciever and the defender once the ball is in the air. it's just not called that way.

 

[TomBrady'sGoat]

The problem with this is that PI is such a difficult call that the refs will be overturned half of the time, and the NFL really likes to believe its refs are near-perfect. As it currently stands we're left to remember the egregious mistakes; make it reviewable and we'll have statistics to show just how bad they are on PI calls.

a 15 yd penalty and 1st down is too light. that puts you in a situation where it is greatly beneficial to interfere if the receiver is likely to make big yards.

i am sick of Patriots defenders having the inside track on a ball, having a receiver grab their arms, and having the DB called for interference. sadly i don't see a change to this any time soon.

BTW, when the Bears got the ball at the end the only smart thing to do was to throw it deep and hope for a PI. even after asante caught it i was waiting for a flag.

 

[oldskool138]

Pass interference should have two levels: flagrant and incidental - just like face mask.

If it's blatant, flagrant PI make it a spot foul.

If it's incidental contact make it a 10-15 yard penalty.

It drives me nuts. Teams just have to throw the ball up and 70% of the time they're going to get a PI call. I'm a firm believer in letting the boys play and any incidental contact is part of the game.

Exactly!!! This is a perfect solution to the problem.

Refs suck...

 

[Brady'sButtBoy]

All these issues can be cleared up one easy way - make any play or penalty call reviewable. If you're going to have review then what is the point of limiting its application? A team would still only get two reviews but they could use them on any kind of play or penalty call. The point of replay is to get it right, yes, so then use replay whenever a team decides its employ two chances, regardless of what type of play or call has been made.

 

[mcbee]

Some of these calls are so basic they could be made upstairs by a crew using replay and told to the official by the time he would ordinaryily announce the penalty.

By the time they're doing their little referee confab an upstairs guy could tell them to skip the penalty as there's nothing there.

In addition it should be an incidental vs. intentional. 1st and goal from the 2 is just an absolute joke. Incidental contact and a free touchdown? ARe you kidding me?

 

[patchick]

Pass interference should have two levels: flagrant and incidental - just like face mask.

If it's blatant, flagrant PI make it a spot foul.

If it's incidental contact make it a 10-15 yard penalty.

It drives me nuts. Teams just have to throw the ball up and 70% of the time they're going to get a PI call. I'm a firm believer in letting the boys play and any incidental contact is part of the game.

This is just what I was going to post. 45-yard penalties are preposterous. 15 yards + a first down is a major penalty, and the judgment call of "flagrant PI" keeps defenders from simply tackling any receiver who gets close to a long bomb.

This seems to me an obvious and necessary change. I am sick to death of watching games where the biggest chunks of yardage come on whistles rather than football plays. That is NOT satisfying or entertaining. Are you listening, Mr. NFL?

 

[friggs]

1. The calls sucked. I know a person or two here has said that at least one was legit, but I disagree.

2. If those calls went against the Pats, wtf was up with the non call against the Bears where the db face guarded (Jackson I think?)

3. Pass interference calls should be able to be reviewed, but keep it a spot foul. Otherwise coaches will be telling their players "If you get burned for a long pass, just lay out and tackle the WR before he can catch it". Better to give up 15 yards than 55.

4. Give teams one extra challenge that can only be used on PI calls. Maybe give coaches a pink flag to throw on that one. Regular red flag challenges could be used on anything they are used for now, plus pass interference calls if the coach chooses.

Any thoughts?

 

[5 Rings for Brady!!]

All these ideas are fine, but as long as NAPOLIAN is in charge, not a damn thing will get done. You can count on it.

 

[Rob0729]

I definitely come on the side of revising the PI rule. I do think the spot of the foul rule is just as damning or more so than changing to the college rule of 15 yard penalty. There are just too many questionable calls especially when it comes to whether the ball was actually catchable or not. The two questionable PI calls resulted directly in 10 points for the Bears. Whether they were the right call or not, I don't know if the Bears score 10 of their 13 points without those calls.

I think college football shows that there probably won't be an exponential amount of increased blatant PI violations. Personally, I think players already do blatant PI to avoid giving up big catches in hopes that the refs won't call it and avoid the big play. I just don't want the refs deciding games and there are too many bad PI calls.

 

[VT_NY_Patsfan]

I see three reasons for replay of pass interference calls:
1.High percentages of pass-interference-calls are game changing.
2.A large number of pass-interference-calls are wrong or extremely questionable.
3.Play happens so fast it is impossible to call it properly as it occurs.

The only reason against using a Replay Challenge for pass-interference-calls is that pass-interference-calls are a judgment call and the ref’s judgment shouldn’t be challenged.

My solution:
When the play is happening on the field any referee can throw a flag and call illegal contact. The head ref then goes immediately to the replay monitor and determines if pass interference has occurred and against whom the call should be made.

 

[Gumby]

Why should anyone be considered infallible.

Certainly M Perreira can dance around it as much as he wants on his show but he has admitted on certain occaisions that refs do make bad calls.

So just allow the coaches red flags to be able to contest their calls as well as the action on the field.

What is so hard about that. It doesnt increase the number of replays and would allow for justice to be served.

Certainly there is no harm to a referee being able to say that "yeah, once I slowd down the frames to 1/100th speed and saw it from 3 different angles I have a different opinion of what I thought I saw" No one would think less of the NFL or referees if they said that. On the contrary the game would be better served.

(at least until some dinkus looks at the incontestable video evidence and still calls it wrong )

 

[Mainefan]

VT NY Patsfan -- your suggestion is perfect, in my judgment.

Instead of making PI a reviewable penalty, let it not be assessed until it has been reviewed by judges upstairs. That won't take all that long--30 seconds, probably, and that will make a good spot for commercials. And it will give both sides (and the fans) some confidence in the officiating and remove the target from the refs' backs.

I really hope someone makes this proposal. I strong agree with what others have said in this thread that PI calls can be game-changing. That means they'd better be fair, for the integrity of the game.

 

[Isaac]

Pass interference should have two levels: flagrant and incidental - just like face mask.

If it's blatant, flagrant PI make it a spot foul.

If it's incidental contact make it a 10-15 yard penalty.

It drives me nuts. Teams just have to throw the ball up and 70% of the time they're going to get a PI call. I'm a firm believer in letting the boys play and any incidental contact is part of the game.

Yes, this is one of my campaigns, except I'd make it:

Spot foul: Player is completely prevented from having any opportunity to catch the ball.

5 yard/1st down: Player is interfered with, but still has an opportunity to catch the ball.

Yes, it would be subjective, but the intention would be to keep the spot foul rule for extreme cases where the player gets full-on tackled or otherwise doesn't have a chance---you need this to prevent players from tackling a player when they get beat (the college system would be repeatedly abused by NFL corners). But if there is just a little bump or hand-checking (or nothing at all, as is often the case), a good reciever should fight through it and make the catch, otherwise give 'em 5 yards and a first down and play on.

I don't know about the review, seems to be muddy waters in slow motion, but maybe.

 

[Bella*chick]

This is a great thread. A 45 yard game-changing penalty....and it CAN'T be reviewed? Give me a break.

Those calls were horrible. Horrible. It's like someone spoke to the refs at the half because they were letting them play in the first half and in the second they were calling everything (and mostly against us). Pathetic.

 

[PatsFaninAZ]

I think so long as the rules and the interpretations are the way they are, there is simply no good solution. I don't like the idea of using replay on calls that are judgment calls. I think it works best when it's about objective issues. Pass interference is always going to be subjective.

The way to solve the problem is to change the rule and the interpretation to make most of the stuff that is or can be PI now to be legal. I think contact should be allowed and the heavy presumption should be that it's incidental, unless it plainly and demonstrably affected the play.

But the NFL doesn't want that to be the rule. Why? Advertising time.

Defense friendly rules are a disaster to the NFL right now. They have already gone so far to get additional revenues, that they are stretched to the breaking point. The new clock rules are not about speeding the game up, but are about finding clever ways to get more advertising in while not making the games 4 hours long. Under the old rules, there were never such things as 10 minute drives, but now they are common. Less action, more commercials. The problem is that when you do stuff like that, you run the risk of too many games ending 7-3 with only 6 drives per team, so you need to find other ways to keep that from happening. Like kickoffs from the 30, or flag crazy officials on PI calls.

As long as the networks are paying $6 billion or whatever, they are going to clammor for great advertising holes, but there is simply nowhere left to skimp, and a 4 hour game will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. They can't move the kick off any further back. (Heck, just moving it from the 35 to the 30 has already severely distorted the game, changing the edge for the team that wins the toss in overtime from like 51/49 to closer to 60/40.) So the league trains its official to throw the flag on PI and makes rules changes designed to encourage the 5-yard chain moving defensive penalties.

 

[AzPatsFan]

Pass interference should have two levels: flagrant and incidental - just like face mask.

If it's blatant, flagrant PI make it a spot foul.

If it's incidental contact make it a 10-15 yard penalty.

It drives me nuts. Teams just have to throw the ball up and 70% of the time they're going to get a PI call. I'm a firm believer in letting the boys play and any incidental contact is part of the game.

Asolutely Positively , Right On!