When the Ravens submitted a proposal to overhaul and expand the NFL's instant replay procedures earlier this year, the rest of the league yawned.
OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. The owners listened. But then they tabled the proposal, essentially kicking the can down the road. There's talk of it being discussed again at another league meeting this month, but the general response was, "Maybe one day, guys. Now let's get down to our important business."
Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh was undaunted in defeat. "Oh, it will pass eventually," he said of expanded replay.
I think he's right. There's no doubt the league will have to heed the Ravens' plan, probably sooner rather than later, for the beautifully simple reason Harbaugh stressed in defending the idea:
The game's credibility is at stake.
Minor detail, right?
"That's the most compelling argument, the credibility of the game," Harbaugh said.
If no one wants to listen to that now, believe me, they will soon enough.
Here in Baltimore, we've already experienced the worst-case example of what can happen when the sophisticated technology now readily available to fans reveals a mistake that rules don't allow replay to correct. Last November, a false-start penalty on the last play of a game between the Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars went uncalled and uncorrected, giving the Jaguars time to kick a game-winning field goal.
The league admitted its mistake the next day, stating that time should have expired and the Ravens should have won. But that was already old news. Within minutes of the end of the game the day before, the TV networks were broadcasting replays that highlighted the officiating mistake.
Everyone knew the wrong team had won the game.
If that doesn't puncture a sport's credibility, what does?
"This is not 1999, when we put replay in," Harbaugh said. "Everybody is watching the game through their smartphones now. The fans live in replay. The fans are officiating the game in replay. The fans have a better look of the game than the official does. Why aren't we giving officials and coaches that same view?"
It's a great question that the league will have to address as technology inevitably reveals more gaps in replay's ability to serve as a safeguard against mistakes.
What's it going to take? Well, the Baltimore-Jacksonville game was between two losing teams; imagine the outcry if a playoff game or even the Super Bowl gets decided by an incorrect call that went unchanged because of replay policy dictates.
For those who don't know, the Ravens' proposal flips and simplifies the guideline for determining what's reviewable. Instead of the current list of more than 30 penalties that CAN be reviewed, the Ravens' proposal identities eight penalty types that CANNOT be reviewed.
Admittedly, the end result is more rules subjected to replay, which means more reviews, which means more delays during games, and that's probably why the owners tabled the proposal. Hey, the prospect doesn't thrill me, either. There are already too many delays in games. I like to watch football, not officiating huddles.
But at the same time, I know that's a dated attitude and it's time to admit the war is over. Hi-def cameras and other sophisticated technology are giving everyone up-close views of plays that weren't available even a decade ago. Technology is part of football now because, well, it can be. And as with any sweeping advancement, there's no going back.
The Ravens' proposal might need to be tweaked to gain broad acceptance, but it brings a common-sense approach to the process, making blows to the head and other "safety" calls reviewable. That obviously needs to happen given the increase in such calls and their importance to the outcome of so many games now.
"If the fans perceive outcomes as being fair and correct, then you have credibility, it's more exciting," Harbaugh said. "But if the fans perceive outcomes as being incorrect and therefore unfair, if they can see a team that won a game that shouldn't have won the game because of a blown call that could have been corrected that they saw in real time, on TV, in their device, on their TV screen, fans aren't going to accept that."
He's right. You watch, the Ravens' proposal will pass one of these days.
