The NFL approved a plan on Tuesday to expand replay assistance, allowing the league at the command center in New York to drop a flag when considering a disqualification for a flagrant football act and a non-football act that was not called on the field.
Having New York put a flag on the field is a line the league previously had not crossed. While it was not originally in the proposal, it was amended to include both a flag and disqualification. But according to Rich McKay, co-chair of the Competition Committee, it’s likely not going to be the last we hear of this kind of assistance — in part because there were two instances last year where New York was ready to do something but could not.
“I think there was a good, healthy discussion on the whole idea of replay assist and the idea that over time we will probably expand replay assist even more and allow New York to do more,” McKay said on Tuesday. “But this was the first time that we ventured into the world of putting a flag down and having New York step in and disqualify a player.”
McKay added that there was not much resistance to having New York put down a flag, even in this narrow set of circumstances.
“I would say the room and the discussion in the room was more along the lines of, ‘Can we do more, not less?’” McKay said. “And I think we as a committee … we stand true to the idea that we want replay assist and we want New York to be able to help. We just don’t want to move too fast. We don’t want to add too much to it.”
McKay noted that Broncos head coach Sean Payton and Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell noted that New York dropping a flag in this particular instance made sense if there were an ejection. McKay cited the example of an offense still needing to punt on fourth-and-2 despite a defensive player getting ejected via the league office for throwing a punch.
Further on the subject, McKay noted that the league wants there to be more transparency in the process of replay assist, but not at the expense of slowing the game down.
“I think we’ve seen in college where all of a sudden, there’s been this discussion of when they … watch replay or a challenge, they have that discussion \[on the broadcast\] and people like that,” McKay said. “In our case, we have somebody in the stadium that’s a replay assistant, we have New York that’s watching the games, we have a referee on the field, and we are really trying to hurry the process along. We’re not interested in three-hour, 20-minute games as college has three-hour, 30-minute games. So for us, that plays a big part in it.
“This year, we did put in the book that we want to make sure the referee, every single time replay assist is used, they announce replay assist. So people hear it, it’s heard by everyone, the referee says, ‘With replay assist, we did’ this — because we do want that … so people know that people looked at it, blessed it, and this is the outcome.”
Separately, the NFL passed the plan for even more expanded replay assistance if the league uses replacement officials for this season. But McKay noted that is more about how replacement officials will have to make calls for fouls in the NFL game that may not exist at other levels, like illegal contact.
Still, more and more replay assistance sounds like it’s on the way.
“I do believe … there’s a little better appetite for this than I might’ve thought going into that room,” McKay said. “I still also know that 24 votes are real and that hurdle is not small. And I don’t think we’re in a hurry to do it if we can’t do it really well.”