The NFL is changing its challenge system this season. Maybe instead, it’s time to challenge the challenges.
For the first time since the red flag challenge system was introduced in 1999, head coaches can now designate an assistant coach or staff member as the official flag bearer. It’s reasonable to wonder why we need them at all.
Before the two-minute warning, coaches have exclusive authority to force formal reviews over many ordinary plays. After the warning, that authority flips: coaches are barred from challenging, and the replay official alone decides what deserves another look. If the league trusts the booth when the stakes are highest, why not use the same system for the other 28 minutes?
When coaches first began tucking red flags in their socks and were instructed to throw them on the field whenever they were unhappy with the officiating, the world was panicking over a potential Y2K computer crash. That’s how long we’ve been doing this. Former coaches like Dick Vermeil, Ray Rhodes, Bruce Coslet and Mike Ditka were carrying red flags long before dating apps turned them into pop-culture slang.
Roger Goodell on technology and officials
Mike Jones
A lack of technology may have made them necessary back when replay review was antiquated and cumbersome. We have reached an age when NFL replay officials in New York can monitor every available broadcast angle from every game across the country within seconds.
Regardless of who is throwing the flag, the NFL requires teams to spot a mistake, grab a handkerchief, find an official before the ball is snapped again and wager one of their timeouts against whether the referees got a call wrong.
Coaches have essentially become trial attorneys: File the right motion, at the right time and on the correct grounds, or have the entire case thrown out.
Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell correctly believed the Los Angeles Rams’ Colby Parkinson was down at the 4-yard line in a December game last year and challenged the spot when officials instead placed the ball at the 3.
But a spot is only reviewable when it impacts a first down or touchdown. Parkinson caught a short pass from Matthew Stafford on first-and-10 and turned it into a big play. Since the disputed yard did not affect whether the Rams gained a first down, officials ruled the spot was not challengeable and charged the Lions with a timeout. Replay assistance corrected the call, and officials placed the ball at the 4 anyway — but still took a timeout away from Detroit.
“I won the challenge, but I lost my timeout,” Campbell said.
Football is uniquely suited for an official-led system because every play is followed by a built-in review window. The play clock gives a replay official time to examine what just happened while teams huddle, substitute and prepare for the next snap. Correcting an obvious mistake during that window often wouldn’t require an additional stoppage.
More fundamentally, enforcing the rules should remain the league’s responsibility. A receiver’s foot was either out of bounds or it wasn’t. A runner’s knee was either down or it wasn’t. Those facts shouldn’t change because one coach had a timeout available, recognized the mistake or employed a better replay staff than his opponent.
The NFL already accepts that principle on scores, turnovers, failed fourth downs, and during the final two minutes. Those plays aren’t automatically reviewed because replay officials suddenly become more capable when the stakes rise. They’re reviewed because the league has decided those calls are too important to leave to coaching strategy. A mistake in the first quarter is no less wrong.
Keep automatic reviews for scores, turnovers and failed fourth downs. For other reviewable plays, transfer the authority to initiate corrections from coaches to the replay official. Give a dedicated replay decision-maker assigned to each game a limited window to correct clear, objective errors.
That would require one dedicated decision-maker for every game, rather than supervisors juggling several games at once. No problem. The NFL can afford the staffing.
If the replay official needs additional time to check an angle, he should have the authority to signal the referee and briefly delay the snap. The delay could be capped — maybe no more than 20 seconds. Replay should correct the obvious, not provide time for New York to launch an investigation.
Such a system might create an occasional brief delay, but it should eliminate most lengthy replay stoppages. The NFL is already monitoring every play.
Baseball offers a useful model for making the final decision: MLB’s replay umpire in New York makes the ruling and relays it to the crew chief. The on-field umpires don’t review the evidence themselves. The NFL doesn’t need to bring a tablet onto the field for an expedited correction. Make the call in New York, relay it to the referee and play on.
It would eliminate the coach-triggered formal reviews and sideline theater that occur when coaches run down the field with a flag while assistants scream into their headsets. Or moments such as Thursday night, when New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel played long toss with his flag to protest a fumble call.
Why should coaches have to weigh whether a first-quarter officiating error is important enough to risk a timeout? Getting a call right shouldn’t depend on whether a coach is willing to make a bet.
The NFL has tried a booth-driven system before. From 1986 through 1991, replay supervisors decided which plays warranted review. The league dumped it amid complaints about delays and frustration that teams had no way to request a review.
Technology has evolved quite a bit since the late 1980s. Video was primitive, and the process was excruciatingly slow. Now replay officials can view synchronized, high-definition angles through Hawk-Eye Innovations and communicate directly with officials on the field. The concept wasn’t necessarily wrong; it just arrived about 35 years too soon.
Tennis has largely eliminated human line judges in favor of the same Hawk-Eye system for line calls. Soccer uses its own version of Hawk-Eye for goal-line technology and semi-automated offside technology.
The obvious objection is that the replay official may occasionally miss something a coach would have challenged. Of course that could happen. But the NFL already removes the coaches’ role during the final two minutes, precisely when a missed call can do the most damage. If booth-only authority is sufficient during a winning drive, it should be sufficient in the first quarter, too.
The speed at which these games are played makes perfect officiating impossible. No one is demanding perfection, but rather giving them a little help from the sky when they need it. We shouldn’t need a red flag to do it.
