Belichick: Let Coaches Challenge Everything

They should be allowed to challenge PI etc. It's bull**** that you can get an 70 yard gain off a PI call that might not even be a PI, that isn't fair at all.

Observer said:

Correct officiating always makes the game better, never worse. I don't understand what you are saying.

There are just too many rules in football though that are entirely subjective so that even replays will not be able to remove controversy.

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I don’t think adding time to something that is already dragged out by commercials, halftime shows and players faking injuries is going to make anything better. I think the entire game should be handled like the last 2 minutes where the replay both handles everything and anything questionable is reviewed.

Also the coaches should have 3 challenges per half to use for things they feel the both should have buzzed.

Brady6 said:

I don’t think adding time to something that is already dragged out by commercials, halftime shows and players faking injuries is going to make anything better. I think the entire game should be handled like the last 2 minutes where the replay both handles everything and anything questionable is reviewed.

Also the coaches should have 3 challenges per half to use for things they feel the both should have buzzed.

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Like Ken said, they should have a guy in front of a monitor dedicated to just that job, that would help with the refs going under the hood and wasting time.

I think they should be permitted more than 2 challenges per half but I think if they were allowed to challenge everything the games would be extended dramatically. Human error is also one of the components of pro sports that make the games interesting and entertaining, they could easily replace every home plate baseball umpire with a strike zone machine but that would pull from the human element.

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I'm all for that too, just have an ump behind the plate to keep official track of the count and for plays at home.

Brady6 said:

I don’t think adding time to something that is already dragged out by commercials, halftime shows and players faking injuries is going to make anything better. I think the entire game should be handled like the last 2 minutes where the replay both handles everything and anything questionable is reviewed.

Also the coaches should have 3 challenges per half to use for things they feel the both should have buzzed.

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It's not adding time, they can already review it's just changing what they can review not how many times. And even in the last two minutes they can only review certain plays. If anything adding that capability to the whole game would lengthen it because it creates an infinite amount of possible challenges instead of the finite amount BB suggests.

It doesn't make sense to have instant replay but not use it on game changing plays because of an arbitrary rule on what is or is not reviewable. The point is to keep game changing wrong calls from affecting the game that should be decided by players. It's quite clear the NFL's poor officiating has shaped playoff wins and SBs. If the point of replay is to prevent mistakes from deciding games then their replay rules have failed.

I agree with BB that everything should be eligible for challenge. As he notes, there's a limitation on number of challenges so it doesn't create delays or impact the length of the game at all. That's assuming that the correct decision is to leave such a marginal amount of control over these situations to the coaches in the first place, which I don't think it is.

So I do wish they would take this aspect of the game out of the coaches hands entirely. I do think there should be an NFL replay referee to correct certain calls - spot of ball, what down it is (lol Redskins), turnovers, scoring plays, fumble, pass completion, etc. - provided that they look at ALL plays of that variety. The only real counter-argument is that if they don't have time to look at the play completely because the offense is in hurry up and got to the line too quickly. But if CBS and FOX have time to show us a replay on a pass play on a 2-minute drill, then the NFL has time to look at it - if not, tough ****.

But on the whole, I think the option to challenge a couple plays and not others is an undue waste of coaches' time - picking when and what plays to challenge, whether or not it's too early in the game to bet the timeout, whether it's too late to be able to afford to lose the timeout, how strongly whatever player on the field or coach upstairs feels about it - and all in all it's a pretty reckless system when the basis of said system is just that we don't know how to make the referees themselves be better. There will always be judgment calls on the field, holding, PI...I think all fans and players understand and accept that. Forcing the option to coaches to challenge calls under extremely limited circumstances is just a thinly veiled way of passing the buck from the league to the teams, and it's making the system worse. Kudos to BB for pointing it out.

No way will this happen because of "Gambling" which we all know
plays a big role in the NFL.Refs with certain calls can influence the
point spread in some games.Know I know that the big boys try to even out games so they make money both ways but sometimes I
don't know.....

I don't accept the contention that human error should be a cherished part of umpireship. The league should be using all the technology and human resources it has at its disposal to referee games as accurately and as efficiently as possible.

Bunch of posters have already mentioned having automatic and autocratic booth review for calls, to save the time of having the head referee look under the hood. These guys are all managed and evaluated by the league office in New York, why shouldn't the head referee be a guy in the booth with all the video anyway? They could give these guys Google Glasses or something so they could review plays instantly together as they all huddle. Location devices in the ball so they'd know forward progress and touchdowns more exactly. The technology is there to do this quickly.

And as I believe Brady6 has said, with all the mandatory commericial timeouts in the game anyway, giving the coaches as many as six challenges a half wouldn't slow the game down any, it would simply move the commercial timeouts around to the challenges instead of after scores and kickoffs.

I'm of the school of thought that ideally coaches shouldn't have ANY challenges because the ref system should be reviewing itself after every play anyways. But sadly its such a CYA organization at this point that taking challenges away from coaches is practically inconceivable.

patchick said:

I wonder how specific the challenge would have to be? A wide-open challenge system could end up with a lot of gamesmanship.

Let's say that you're on defense, and in one slow-developing play the QB stays in the pocket for quite a while then throws a pass that turns into an 80-yard TD. Wouldn't you be tempted to challenge based on "offensive holding," even if you saw nothing, hoping and trusting that a careful review of every blocker would end up revealing at least a moment of holding?

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Good question. IMHO, it'd only work with specific challenges to rulings or non rulings. For example, in Carolina BB could have challenged the non ruling of a PI or defensive holding, but he would have to choose which infraction occurred and indicate that it was on Gronk. Part of the review would include assessing the materiality of the challenged ruling; for instance, a borderline uncalled PI to a receiver might get overturned if he were targeted but would be confirmed if he were not.


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One partial solution to this would be to have the league create a system where a panel reviews all games as they're being played, similar to what the NHL is doing in a limited manner. When obvious screwups happen on plays, the feeds, which would be sent back to the centralized area, would be readily available, and the panel could call in to the officials, who could then check the replay. None of this would need any extra challenges, as it could just be integrated into the games.

I had a similar thought on this a while ago about adding additional challenge flags for penalties.

In addition to the 2 flags that can be used on everything else, teams would get 2-3 different color flags (maybe orange or something else easy to see) that can be used solely to challenge penalties. Teams won't be charged time outs if they lose a penalty challenge nor can they gain any additional flags for winning all the challenges. They have 2-3 flags all game and that is it.

Also, non-calls CANNOT be challenged. If a coach sees on the jumbo tron someone being held but there was no flag or penalty, that coach cannot challenge to make it a penalty. The only time a penalty can be challenged is if a flag is thrown and either the refs decided no penalty occurred or the refs determined a penalty occurred and gave a penalty. So, at minimum, a flag must be thrown before a penalty challenge flag is eligible to be used.

So, for example, the Pats and Panthers game. The refs threw the flag but did not call a penalty. Under my rules, that non-call would be eligible to be challenged due to the flag being thrown. They would have overturned the non-call after review and the Pats would have had another play to win and they would have won (most likely).

I 100% agree it would be the best thing sence the touchdown celebration.

Brady6 said:

You say that because the Panthers game is so fresh in everybody’s head but when the games start lasting from 1pm to 630pm with 50% of that time with a ref under the hood you’d have a different outlook. Human error is part of sports, you make everything challengeable and before long you’re playing a video game.

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The Truth has no time limit.

A coach should be allowed to have as many challenges available to him as he has timeouts remaining, in both halves.

All it takes is one blown call to ruin a game, or take away a sure touchdown, or kill a comeback rally, or preserve a win in the fourth quarter. These inconsistencies do not make the game more enjoyable or exciting.

As a lifelong NFL fan I would much rather see a game decided by the players on the field than by the referees who made the wrong decision or "judgment call." I don't even see how that's even arguable. And if it takes taking advantage of the available technology to get right call, I don't see how any sensible person could argue against that.

Why isn't this guy on the rules committee? BB is so well spoken and knows the game better than anyone.

I made a similar point in another thread.
everything is s judgement call. the spot of the ball, catch, a drop, a hold.... it's just a matter of the evidence supporting or refuting it.

the same is true of interference.... if there's irrefutable evidence that it's interference, then how much of a judgment call is it? is it any less sure than a catch in some cases?

captain stone said:

The Truth has no time limit.

A coach should be allowed to have as many challenges available to him as he has timeouts remaining, in both halves.

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Exactly.
No way can there be unlimited challenges (as I believe some are suggesting). The nature of coaching is such a highly competitive thing that it would get repeatedly abused for advantage. Think of a Brady or Manning offense in the no huddle/hurry up. Perfect way to slow it down would be to abuse the challenge/IR. But, as you said, just simply tie challenges to time outs.
The logic of it is obvious IMHO.

As far as what should be challengeable? That's a tough one. IMHO any thrown flag should be challengeable, period. I'd argue PI, for example, is more often than not going to be decided more justly from video replay than in real time on the field. However, it gets dicey if you can challenge anything that didn't draw a flag. I'd bet if you scanned the field looking at every individual battle, you could find a penalty on just about every play (at least by the letter of the law). That in no way would be a good thing for the game.

This plan won't change the bad non penalty call situations but it would likely have a good effect on bad penalty call situations.

RelocatedPatFan said:

did you read the article? Coaches would still only have 2 (3 if the prior 2 are successful) challenges per game. they can't challenge every play, that would (indeed) be ridiculous.

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His point was on the interference on Edelman's fair catch. Had it been recovered by Houston, he would have been able to challenge whether the Patriots recovered but NOT whether they ran into a returner who signaled for a fair catch. If the intent is to "get it right", BB is on the money....

Patsfanin Philly said:

His point was on the interference on Edelman's fair catch. Had it been recovered by Houston, he would have been able to challenge whether the Patriots recovered but NOT whether they ran into a returner who signaled for a fair catch. If the intent is to "get it right", BB is on the money....

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Exactly and that's what the NFL is not getting for some reason. You can't expect the refs to get every call right with how fast the game moves but all of the mechinisms put in place should be geared towards getting the call right and worrying about judgement.

With how bad the officiating has been around the league this year I'd also couple this with changing the rule from 2 challenges (3 if you get the first 2 right) to unlimited but also augment that with every challenge you get wrong comes with a 5 yard incremental penalty. So the first one wrong 5 yards, second 10 yards, etc. If some dumb @ss like Swartz wants to take a 35 yard penalty let him. You would probably need to move out the booth review at the end of games from under 2 minutes to at least 5 if not 10 so teams didn't use it for free timeouts but if they're challenging stupid stuff the additional penalty yards would take care of that but I'd be worried about the defense doing it in goal line situations where giving up a half yard for a 5 minute break is probably worth it.

TheBostonStraggler said:

Exactly.
As far as what should be challengeable? That's a tough one. IMHO any thrown flag should be challengeable, period. I'd argue PI, for example, is more often than not going to be decided more justly from video replay than in real time on the field. However, it gets dicey if you can challenge anything that didn't draw a flag. I'd bet if you scanned the field looking at every individual battle, you could find a penalty on just about every play (at least by the letter of the law). That in no way would be a good thing for the game.

This plan won't change the bad non penalty call situations but it would likely have a good effect on bad penalty call situations.

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I don't see why you can't have your (non-calling) cake and eat it too if you base your challenging criteria on a)the certainty a penalty was/was not committed, and b)the call/non-call in question has a direct and obvious impact on the outcome of a play.

Anything that's called a penalty, by default, has a direct and obvious impact on the play's outcome, so all penalties, as mentioned, could be reviewed.

For a non-call, your window of operation tightens, but this way simultaneously enhances getting the calls that matter right, while mitigating abuse of the new system.

Let's look at two examples from the Houston game:

1) Julian Edelman is clearly and demonstrably hit after signalling a fair-catch. This can and should be challenged, and the ruling of a non-call would be overturned.

2) Danny Amendola (I think) draws an illegal hands to the face penalty. Had this NOT been called, I don't think it could be challenged. While it is clearly a penalty, outside of Amendola *possibly* being Brady's first target, the penalty had no direct or obvious impact on the play. If Brady *had* targeted Amendola, then the impact becomes direct and the non-call should be challenged.

Also, obviously no 'blanket' challenges should be possible (e.g. offensive holding, somewhere, at some point). Challenges would have to be player-specific. Even penalties such as offsides would require you to pick one player you believe was guilty/innocent (and if you think the O drew your player offsides, challenge false start on the offending player).

Count me in the lot who don't get nostalgic for reffing 'tradition'. The more objectivity, equality, and clarity you can instill into the game, the better. The argument that the games would be longer is blatantly ridiculous; we are not advocating an increase in challenges, but rather more freedom in WHAT we wish to challenge.

If PI is called on a tick-tacky call but where there was contact, no coach is going to challenge that, because there's no way it would be overturned. That grey area, due to the complexity of the game, is intrinsic, and I have no immediate solutions to how you remove it.

But calls heard around the world, that are obvious, wrong, and alter the outcome of games need to be stopped. At the VERY least the coaches need to have the power to question them.

Right now we're not even entitled to an explanation.

How many more people are going to come here, not having read the article, and say that this is a bad idea because the game would be too long?