Cowboys owner Jerry Jones spoke out against the kneel-down play to end games during a radio interview on Tuesday. The topic was brought up in response to the controversy that took place at the end of the Giants-Buccaneers game. Giants coach Tom Coughlin was upset with Bucs coach Greg Schiano for the way his players went after Eli Manning on the final play, feeling that the Bucs violated some unwritten rule by going hard. Jones would like to eliminate the entire play.
“I’ve always thought that that’s a wasted play for our fans — the kneel-down,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan/KRLD-FM. “[Former Kansas City Chiefs owner] Lamar Hunt tried several times to introduce a rule and have it voted on that you couldn’t kneel down. You had to run a play. Unless you were trying to advance the ball, then you got a penalty and time didn’t run off the clock. It’s not a good play.”
That might just be the solution to the problem — eliminate the kneel-down and force teams to run plays. As long as there is time left on the clock, then the game is still going on, right?
Jones also discussed the replacement referees and indicated that he doesn’t miss the regular officials. He felt like the biggest complaints about the replacement refs came from the losing teams (which hasn’t been true), and that teams will complain about refs regardless.
While I agree that we see complaints about referees no matter what, the replacement referees have been particularly bad at asserting themselves and controlling the action. That is the biggest area where they have been problematic.
