Nothing is official yet, but the NFL competition committee is reportedly considering a massive change.
The change that is being mulled over has to do with replays. There are already off-field officials, both in the stadium and in New York, who assist the on-field referees when it comes to replay-eligible plays. We’ve also seen replay assist speed things up as it relates to spot fouls, ball spotting and even some penalties.
Could an off-the-field official throw a flag, though? That’s what the competition committee is considering, according to Kevin Seifert and Mike Reiss of ESPN.
We’re not talking about things like false starts and holding, but there is the possibility that replay officials can “throw” a flag for specific penalties. The main penalties in discussion are non-football acts that went unpenalized on the field. An example would be two players scuffling behind a play, and a punch is thrown that is caught by the replay officials.
NFL must be careful not to over-regulate the game via replay officials
One would imagine all the after-the-whistle activity that happens in dogpiles and scrums for a loose football could end up being penalized as well.
NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent brought up the idea on Monday. He seemed hesitant to go all-in on the idea, but it’s at least something that is on the table.
“You don’t want to just be expanding the Pandora’s box,” Vincent said, per ESPN, “but we believe that things like the non-football act, you can really, really restrict what that is. That’s something that we believe that potentially there’s a little bit of tweaking in the language, that may be the first step.”
“Pandora’s box” is a good way to describe this idea because the NFL could absolutely get mired in the overregulation that could come from “the eye in the sky” always watching.
It’s also silly to think about the idea of a replay official throwing a flag. Of course, in reality, the on-field official would throw it on their behalf. Just imagine the tense moment when a panel opens up on the overhead scoreboard and a yellow flag slowly flutters onto the field.
The NFL could even feature the replay official, sort of how “Deal or No Deal” made “The Banker” a shadowy figure.
Pandora’s box, indeed.