INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel called on the NFL to increase staffing at its replay command center to ensure reviews from all games are treated equally.
Vrabel spoke at the NFL scouting combine Wednesday and was asked about comments earlier this week by league executive Troy Vincent that there were a handful of mistakes made in replay last season in games played in the early Sunday afternoon window when as many as nine games were played at the same time.
“We need to make sure every game is treated the same — from the prime-time game on Sunday night to the prime-time game on Monday or Thursday or whether it’s one of those one o’clock games that is the lifeblood of our league,” said Vrabel, who is a member of the competition committee.
“So if it’s something we need to take care of in the offseason, staffing issues that need to be taken care of so that those things are looked at, we need to be really good at replay because there’s going to be mistakes on the field. … We have to get to a system in replay that’s as close to 100% accurate as possible.”
Vincent said earlier this week that out of the 171 plays that were called on replay or replay assist, there were only a handful that were mishandled. The majority of those came in the 1 p.m. ET window, when there are more games being played simultaneously.
“There were five after we kind of took a step back and breathed — four of them (were) in the 1 o’clock window,” Vincent said. “Just volume and you go, ‘Ah, if we had to do that one again, just looking at it.’”
At least one of those plays proved crucial in the playoff race. Vincent cited a replay review in a Week 14 game that overturned a ruling on the field of an interception thrown by Pittsburgh’s Aaron Rodgers. The decision cost Baltimore 46 yards in field position, and the Ravens eventually lost the game 27-22 when a potential go-ahead TD pass from Lamar Jackson to Isaiah Likely was ruled incomplete by replay.
That call was not one of the five Vincent referenced, but he did say it warranted more discussion about what is or isn’t a catch. A win in that game for Baltimore would have given the Ravens the AFC North title instead of the Steelers.
An increase in staffing at the replay command center during windows with more games would not solve all of the inequities in comparison to higher-profile games, which feature significantly more cameras used by the broadcasters.
San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch, a former broadcaster and a new member of the competition committee, said that needs to be addressed as well.
“I do think that’s something we want to strive for as a league,” Lynch said. “I think there’s some uniformity you can get by requiring teams to have fixed cameras and things. I know all those things are being discussed, but that is a reality that the one o’clock games, there’s multiple games going on at the same time. So, the New York headquarters, they’re not going to have all their attention on that game. And then within that, the element that I talked about just not having the amount of cameras and angles. That’s a reality and something that we have to figure out because every game is important in our league, not just the prime-time games.”
