The NFL Competition Committee is looking at making uncalled penalties reviewable, but there are real worries about the process that could ensure it doesn’t come to pass.
According to Judy Battista of NFL.com, the committee is deeply concerned about “unintended consequences” of such a rule. The worry is, essentially, that coaches will find a reason to challenge every scoring play in a bid to get it wiped out by pointing out a missed holding call or something similar.
Big phrase with Competition Committee, always: "unintended consequences." Real concern that making non-calls reviewable would mean flags thrown on every TD run, for example. Coach says "hey, look at the guard, he was holding."
— Judy Battista (@judybattista) February 25, 2019
It’s a reasonable fear — there is, after all, the adage that holding happens on every play in the NFL, called or not. Other sports have found out that expanding replay can sometimes lead to the spirit of the rules being ignored. Major League Baseball, for instance, set out to correct obvious missed calls with its replay system, but it has since ended up as a mechanism to try to get players called out if they briefly come off the base while making a slide, which was never the intent.
The discussion stems primarily from a missed call that ultimately kept the New Orleans Saints out of the Super Bowl. It’s a discussion worth having, but it also has to be a careful discussion as well.
