Fixing the Officiating

[Dan Darragh]

2 hours ago, st pete gogolak said:

I’m not going to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, but with all the money being bet on NFL games, the League HAS to do something to reduce the influence the officials have on game outcomes.  Obviously, it will never be reduced to zero, but there has to be a way to at least reduce their influence.  Here are my thoughts but very interested if anyone has a thought on this.

 

Defensive PI.  Move from spot foul to 15 yards.  If “flagrant” PI becomes an issue, tinker with the rule the following year.  
 

Illegal contact. Increase area for contact from 5 to 10 yards.  Eliminate ticky tack fouls. Contact has to be substantial and reduce receiver’s ability to contest for a catch.  The call on the Eagles last night in the second half gifting the Chiefs a first down was a travesty.  
 

Defensive holding. Again, eliminate ticky tack foul.  Holding has to reduce receiver’s ability to contest for a catch. 
 

Offensive holding. At least be consistent.

 

Sick of refs determining outcomes.  Thoughts?

Revive "uncatchable" as negating defensive PI.

 

Add an exception to defensive PI where the ball is underthrown and the contact results primarily from the receiver coming back to the ball.

[Bob Jones]

13 minutes ago, Bobby Hooks said:

That would be a huge mistake. You’d essentially ruin one of the most exciting parts of the entire game. 
 

I know bombs are one of the things that drew me to the game as a kid. If you make pi a 10-15 yard penalty you’re guaranteeing every single bomb where the db is beat will end in a pi. 
 

Heck, there’d be some teams/coaches that would strategize to do that stuff and squeeze them when they’re too close to attempt anymore bombs. 
 

It would be a really bad idea for the game (making it result in more pi’s/flags, and much less bomb tds), and for the nfl because for the same reasons as it’s bad for the game. New watchers want excitement, not flag central. 

Ridiculous. Most times, on a "bomb" pass, the defender is not even close enough to contact the receiver, and the receiver waltzes in to the end zone untouched.

 

As somebody else pointed out in this thread though, A LOT of defensive PIs happen when a ball is underthrown, and the receiver has to come back to the ball, and there is a collision actually caused by the receiver, because he slowed down and/or stopped dead in his tracks to come back to the ball. You're rewarding a team for having a crappy throw by their QB.

 

I could also see what somebody else offered....2 severities of PI, just like on grabbing the facemask foul used to be. You have to admit that very often these PI calls are made on the defense with very minor, incidental contact.

[FilthyBeast]

Refs tried to come to the rescue for the Chiefs as usual. Still shocked they called that intentional grounding call on Mahomes...makes me think an official will get fired for that.

[T master]

2 hours ago, ALLinALLEN said:

I think the best way to do so would be to change the penalty yardage somehow for all the penalties. Not sure how to do it but it makes no sense how a DPI is spot foul and sometimes 40+ yards, but OPI is 15 yards...? Maybe OPI should be the yardage backwards LOL

 

Or both yardages the same for the same type of foul 🤔 . Oh yah i guess that's what you saying .

Edited November 21, 2023 by T master

[Shaw66]

There's so much wrong, it's appalling.   Here are some things on my list, in no particular order:

 

1.  Ease up on the ineligible man downfield.  It kills a lot of good gains, and it's dumb.  It usually comes when the QB is scrambling, and in that situation the defense simply doesn't care if an offensive lineman is three yards past the line of scrimmage.  

 

2.  Have an automatic review of every play that would have been a scoring play if the ref had spotted it differently.  Refs didn't call a safety in Steelers-Browns even though it was pretty clear on the live play, and definitely clear on replay.   It makes no sense that scoring plays are reviewed, but not scoring plays that depend on the spot are not.   It means if your defense gives up a score, you don't have to ask for a review, but if your offense just misses a score, you have to waste a challenge and lose a timeout to have someone look at it.  

 

3.  Every year they have some things that are points of emphasis.   This season they decided to lighten up on ticky-tack interference calls, and it really improved the flow of the game.  Last couple of weeks, the officials started falling into the same old habits, and calling interference on dumb little contact and sometimes on no contact at all. 

 

4.  Change the holding rules.   The defensive linemen and blitzers are so good that no one can protect the quarterback.  They have to let the o linemen hold a little more.   And do something about those holding calls when the back cuts back, the defender changes direction and essentially creates a hold.  The o lineman can't do anything about it.  

 

5.  Put a chip in the ball so that spotting the ball and measuring for first downs is automated and accurate.  Also so that reviews of goal line plays make sense.  On a QB sneak, on review you usually can't see the ball.  If they had a chip, it would be simpler.  

[NeverOutNick]

33 minutes ago, Billzgobowlin said:

This solves absolutely none of the issues with refs other than pay

It’s obviously a 2 part scenario brother. That’s why I wrote 1 AND 2…not 1 OR 2 lol

 

That’d be like someone saying to pop this popcorn there’s 2 thing you need to do: 

 

1. Put in microwave

2.  Set cook timer for 2 minutes and hit start

 

and then complaining because they have no popcorn after only doing step one.

 

[fasteddie]

55 minutes ago, boco357 said:

Why does the sky judge only come out on illegal man downfield calls?  

The endless huddles after plays by refs makes the games last so much longer.

Like Sunday night? 🤪

[Matt_In_NH]

I am actually an official apologist of sorts....I do acknowledge they get a lot wrong but I think their job is so much harder than people realize and they actually get a ton of things right...people only talk about things that are subjective or blatent missed calls.  When you can do super slow motion and see hey that guys hand hit the guy a frame earlier than the ball arrived it will always be easy to criticize.  The amount of rules and the details of the rules is a huge amount of information that needs to be processed all the time.  Take a minute to realize the improvements they have done.  A number of years ago, all you would hear abotu on Mondays is catches that were rule incomplete cause some miniscule ball movement, they NFL did a great job of fixing the interpretation of what is and is not a catch and there will always be some that are close there are less controversial catch/no catches today.   The quick booth reviews that happen that fix ball placement, determine a called TD is not a TD or a guy ruled out is changed to a TD without coach or field officials doing anything is another improvement.   If anyone thinks it "is only getting worse" I challenge you to go to youtube and watch a game from the 90's when obvious INT's or fumbles or TD's are wrong and it is clear as day by replay but there was not replay to fix it.  All of those they get right now.

 

1.  Having the officials be full time will not make better officials, only technology and reviews can make it better.

2.  Subjectivity is hard to remove (PI, roughing the passer etc) but any time you can remove subjectivity it should be done and generally the NFL has tried to do that but you can't get rid of all of it.

3.  Make embellishing a foul, Josh Allen is one of many who should be flagged for this.  The over protection of QB's and receivers has resulted in guys overreacting to minor hits trying to get the call.   

4.  Humans can really only look/focus at one thing, when you watch a replay 16 times you can look at many things but in real time you can only see one thing so it is unrealistic to expect these guys to be perfect. Instead they should continue to use reviews to fix mistakes.  

5.  They should continue to try to find ways to use reviews and other possible uses of technology like chips in balls etc.

 

Thanks for reading if you got this far.  I know most wont agree with this but its my 2 cents...

[LabattBlue]

12 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

5.  Put a chip in the ball so that spotting the ball and measuring for first downs is automated and accurate.  Also so that reviews of goal line plays make sense.  On a QB sneak, on review you usually can't see the ball.  If they had a chip, it would be simpler.  

A chip in the ball doesn’t know when forward progress is stopped, or when a player is down.  So, it doesn’t really simplify things. 

[msw2112]

1 hour ago, Chaos said:

A couple of concrete suggestions:

 

1) Defensive Pass Interference is the single biggest game changer.   I think the rules would be much improved if there were two versions of DPI (like there is with fask masking, or roughing the kicker).  Flagrant/Intentional spot foul as it is now.  Incidental, same as defensive holding, five yards automatic first down.  Obviously this involves some judgement, still but I think it would be better. 

 

2)Roughing the Passer.  Another game changer. Like roughing the kicker, I feel like there needs to be a five yard and 15 yard version.   Again, it involves judgement, but I think we all know that when they wait until Patrick Mahomes requests the RTP call, it likely means it was not flagrant, as one example. 

 

 

I was going to post something along these lines.  Incidental DPI or Roughing the Passer could be 5 yards and replay the down (maybe or maybe not an automatic 1st down), but intentional or egregious DPI would be the current spot foul and automatic 1st down, and intentional and egregious RTP would be the current 15 years and a 1st down.  Yes, it will create some subjectivity, but it gives the officials an "out" when they have to technically make the call, but it's not egregious or intentional, and it wouldn't swing the outcome of games like it does today.

Edited November 21, 2023 by msw2112

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

2 hours ago, st pete gogolak said:

 

 

Sick of refs determining outcomes.  Thoughts?

I agree with changing defensive PI from a spot foul to a 15 yard penalty. my caveat would be if the penalty takes place in the end zone make the enforcement be first and goal from the 10 If the original spot was at the 20 yard line or beyond. and make the enforcement have to distance to the goal if it’s inside the 20.

 

your other suggestions can’t really be changed as they’re all just judgment calls. NFL can change enforcement, but there’s not much they can do when it comes to judgment calls.
 

moving illegal contact from 5 yards to 10 yards doesn’t really fix anything. It just means all the calls everyone complains about will happen around the 10 yard line instead of around the five.
 

 

[blitzboy54]

2 hours ago, st pete gogolak said:

I’m not going to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, but with all the money being bet on NFL games, the League HAS to do something to reduce the influence the officials have on game outcomes.  Obviously, it will never be reduced to zero, but there has to be a way to at least reduce their influence.  Here are my thoughts but very interested if anyone has a thought on this.

 

Defensive PI.  Move from spot foul to 15 yards.  If “flagrant” PI becomes an issue, tinker with the rule the following year.  
 

Illegal contact. Increase area for contact from 5 to 10 yards.  Eliminate ticky tack fouls. Contact has to be substantial and reduce receiver’s ability to contest for a catch.  The call on the Eagles last night in the second half gifting the Chiefs a first down was a travesty.  
 

Defensive holding. Again, eliminate ticky tack foul.  Holding has to reduce receiver’s ability to contest for a catch. 
 

Offensive holding. At least be consistent.

 

Sick of refs determining outcomes.  Thoughts?

 

Starting to think this is the root of the problem. Calls have gotten so bad I'm starting to wonder.

[Jrb1979]

2 hours ago, Dancing Fool said:

Pretty confident that the results the NFL is getting with their referees is exactly what they are hoping to achieve. I would encourage you to just accept that the NFL has their reasons for not "fixing" your perceived issue and enjoying the product for what it is.

 

After all, if the NFL felt that it was a problem, they would make dramatic changes. Year after year, they do not.

 

One can speculate as to why the NFL disagrees with your assessment, but it may have to do with their classification as "sports entertainment", a designation shared most notably with the modern WWE.

Agreed. The NHL and NBA are no different. The refs call the game to keep them the score as close as possible. It helps with parity and helps with TV numbers if games are close. It will never change as calling the game this way is what's best for the league. 

[The Jokeman]

2 hours ago, WhoTom said:

 

I agree, which reminds me ... during the Bills-Jets game, there was a flag for an ineligible man downfield. Then the ref said, "After review, it was determined that the lineman was not downfield," and they picked up the flag. Since when is that reviewable?

It's reviewable for the ref in the box and/or New York. 

[Malazan]

25 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

A chip in the ball doesn’t know when forward progress is stopped, or when a player is down.  So, it doesn’t really simplify things. 

 

You say that with a lot of certainty given that my phone knows when it's turned on it's side and can even tell when I'm laying down. I think you'd be surprised by what they could do.

[Shaw66]

27 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

A chip in the ball doesn’t know when forward progress is stopped, or when a player is down.  So, it doesn’t really simplify things. 

It helps in both cases on replay.  On replay, they can play the sound and stop the video when the whistle sounds.  The chip will show where the ball is.  

 

On replay, they can stop the play when the knee is down.  The chip will show where the ball is.  Of course, if you can't see where the player touches the ground, it's a problem.  

 

The NFL is way behind technologically when it comes to measurements and placing the ball.  

[Matt_In_NH]

55 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

A chip in the ball doesn’t know when forward progress is stopped, or when a player is down.  So, it doesn’t really simplify things. 

In some scenarios it could at the goal line....but you are right forward progress is subjectively called.

[billsfan89]

PI should be a spot foul if blatant. The problem is that somewhat incidental contact and collisions on under thrown balls shouldn’t be spot fouls. Similar to how there used to be a 5 yard face mask penalty (for more incidental infractions) and a 15 yard face mask penalty (for more intentional infractions) refs should have some other type of penalty for less egregious PI penalties.

 

Giving refs some additional discretion in PI penalties would greatly help. While on that matter I would also have personal fouls be instantly reviewed by the booth. Both can overturn a call if it’s egregious. These plays happen fast for the refs so helping them out by booth review on those penalties should helps

[Tenhigh]

3 hours ago, The Firebaugh Kid said:

Nobodys gonna like this, but some penalties and non penalties need to be reviewable. Human error will never go away.

I love the idea of a booth ref paired with each ref on the field who can instruct the on-field ref to throw or pick up a flag. 

[Saxum]

Officiating crews for the 2023 season

https://www.footballzebras.com/2023/06/officiating-crews-for-the-2023-season/