Not That This Will Cost Anybody A Spot In the Playoffs, Or Anything

Instant Replay: “It Gets It Right”

Except when it doesn't.

Which is often.

But don't bring that up to replay supporters, because in their mind, every call that replay gets right, is somehow worth double the number of calls replay botches, or just misses altogether.

Like Obama claiming “jobs saved or created” it is a stacked, imaginary statistic.

“It gets it right.” Sure. Keep repeating that like a mantra, if it makes you feel good.

Except when it doesn't.

Or if you are out of challenges.

Or if the other team runs a play.

Or your coach forgets to throw the red flag.

Or if there's some other vague confusion going on that prevents a play from being meticulously re-constructed, pieced back together, and returned to officiating perfection.

Other than that, it's fantastic. So glad we have it. Soooooo, glad. (Ahem. Cough.)

This weekend was another example of replay's continued corrosive effect on the NFL and its rulesmakers and officiating crews. We are chasing a level of perfection that is wholly unattainable. And writing the rulebook into a dense tome of entangled definitions that make a mockery of the game.

When you hang a picture in your house, do you measure the nailhole from 6 different points on the wall, ceiling to floor, and diagonally too?

I don't. I eyeball where the picture looks like it should go, and hang it there. If that's off a bit, I move the nail a few inches one way or the other, and boom, job finished.

My wife, however, insists I take all kind of measurements.

Sometimes, the “technical center” of where a picture should be hung, actually doesn't look right. This might be because of how a window on the wall distorts your perceived “visual center” of the space.

This is like the Visanthe Shiancoe TD that was over-ruled by Scott Greene on Sunday night.

To the naked eye, it looked perfect. A masterpiece catch, hung squarely in the middle of a wall.

But nah, Mike McCarthy, playing the role of my wife, asked for 6 different precise measurements. Well, lo and behold, it was off by 2 inches. Change the nail-hole. Great, now it looks like shit.

UPDATE: The NFL admitted Monday, Scott Greene blew the call. WHILE LOOKING AT IT ON REPLAY! I await his 1-game suspension with baited breath.

Same thing on the Big Ben fumble.

To the naked eye, that's a fumble. Every day of the week. Especially on Sundays.

But I can guarantee that officiating crews themselves are less worried about getting it right on the on-field call, because they know they can just look at what happened in 30 frames per frozen high-def second under the hood.

And when they let their guard down like that, stupid shit ends up happening. Like, um, they forget to stay focused and rule who recovered the fumble – a fumble that they mistakenly thought was never going to be called a fumble, at least not until Gene Steratore put a few quarters into the replay machine and came back with the bad news:

“Fellas, it's a fumble. Who recovered.”
“Uh, I dunno, boss. We sorta forgot that.”

Idiots.

But hey, it only cost the Dolphins the game, and only gave Pittsburgh the win. And hey, what are the chances it could affect Miami's chances of getting into the playoffs, or Pittsburgh's hopes for home field advantage?

I'd say 80% chance it factors in one or both.

And that was why we supposedly HAVE replay in the first place. Because once upon a time, Dennis Erickson, who is a drunk, supposedly missed the playoffs and got fired, for one reason: we didn't have replay when Vinny Testaverde's helmet was stopped at the 1, and the Jets were given a TD to beat the Seahawks.

What-fucking-ever.

Erickson sucked, and hasn't coached in the NFL since, and instant replay is still botching otherwise basic plays that I can guarantee are going to have playoff implications.

The NFL needs to re-write, and re-apply its rules to be more “eyeball oriented” and not “frame-by-frame” oriented.

The ground SHOULD be able to cause a fumble. Hold onto it.

A catch that looks like a catch, IS a catch. Period. Those plays will even themselves out.

And personal fouls, better be something really, really mean. Like picking up a first down marker and bending it over the head of a runner who is 5 yards out of bounds and laid out on his back.

Just PUSHING a guy out of bounds, is NEVER to be considered a 15 yard penalty.

Percy Harvin is quicker and more frightening than having the squirts 8 steps away from a toilet. It is impossible to calibrate – while on the dead run as a defender – the precise moment he will cross over onto white paint.

And that's IF he even does. There's a chance he tiptoes down a 6 inch sliver of green, and goes another 40 yards, making you, the defender, look stupid.

Here's a better idea. Let's push all of the NFL's replay machines off a bridge and accept the fact that technology won't deliver officiating nirvana.