If the NFL continues to make penalties reviewable, it will send the league into a rabbit hole it cannot escape.
A blatantly missed call in last season’s NFC championship game set the NFL world ablaze and eventually prompted a rule change during the offseason.
This season, head coaches have been able to challenge offensive and defensive pass interference calls, as well as non-calls, if the coach believes a penalty should have been called on the play.
Originally, I was for this change. Pass interference is an incredibly game-changing penalty that can sometimes reward 50-plus-yards to a team that didn’t actually complete a pass.
Through six weeks of the NFL season, however, the ability to challenge the call and non-call has confused coaches and viewers alike as to what the rule even means.
“I really don’t know what pass interference is anymore,” Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said via the team’s official website.
The confusion is akin to a previous NFL stumbling block: the catch rule.
Before a March 2018 change that simplified the rule, Cincinnati Bengals tight end Tyler Eifert, who literally catches balls for a living, didn’t know what a catch was by definition.
“I don’t know if anybody really knows what the right call is,” Eifert said to ESPN.com in 2015 after an apparent touchdown reception was overturned after review.
It took 98 years for the NFL to figure out what a catch is. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another 98 for the league to figure out that challenging penalties has no place in the game.
NFL officials have an incredibly difficult job. They have to assess a play and make a decision within seconds on whether or not a flag should
be thrown.
In theory, everyone wants every call to be correct, but human error is just part of the game. In the same way that a quarterback can overthrow a wide receiver, a referee can miss a call.
The challenge flag should not go away because it’s a vital part of the game that gives coaches a chance to take a second look at a play they think should be overturned.
Being able to throw the challenge flag on penalties, however, sets a bad precedent.
Penalties that have been equally as controversial this season include roughing the passer and holding.
If NFL owners continue to think that every controversial call should be able to be reviewed, then we could be just a few seasons away from having nearly every penalty potentially be reviewable.
Every yard matters in the NFL, so if coaches are given the ability to challenge a penalty regardless of the yardage, they will do it.
Allowing coaches to throw a challenge flag to review pass interference is the lazy route. Much like the catch rule, the NFL needs to change and retool the pass interference rule so as to limit the constant controversy it attracts.
So far, there have been 40 pass interference related reviews since the start of this season, according to ESPN.com. Seven of the 40 have been overturned, but NFL coaches are on a cold streak and have only one successful challenge in the last 21 attempts.
If officials are being extra reluctant to overturn these challenges, then what’s the point of having the ability to challenge it in the first place?
A coach only gets two challenge flags to begin a game, and a large majority of them are wasting it on pass interference calls that seem unlikely to be overturned.
This rule was largely put into place due to one bad call in the aforementioned NFC championship game last season. The NFL can’t operate on a reactionary level like that, regardless of the gravity of the missed call.
Thankfully, this rule is only in place for the 2019 season and is in a trial basis. If NFL owners have their wits about them next offseason, they’ll get rid of this rule.
If instead, they decide to expand it and make even more penalties reviewable, then it’ll be a challenge for me to ever watch
another snap.
