Blandino: If it's questionable, it's incomplete (let replay fix it)

[Mr. Scot]

We should probably get ready for a lot of anger this season.

League tells officials to err on the side of incomplete

“When it’s bang-bang, rule it incomplete,” Blandino told the league’s 124 game officials at an annual preseason clinic in Dallas, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com. “When in doubt, make it incomplete.”

Blandino’s advice to err on the side of calling a pass incomplete flows from his confidence that the ruling can be fixed via replay review, if there’s indisputable visual evidence that the player actually had the ball long enough.

“f we look at it on replay and it did appear the receiver had it long enough, then we change it and move on,” Blandino said. “Don’t change how you’re officiating these plays. Bang-bang is incomplete, and the time element allows us to be consistent on these bang-bang plays.”

So maybe there’s a way to harmonize this. Maybe a true bang-bang play should be called incomplete, if the player loses the ball immediately after the second foot comes down. And maybe that handful of plays every year involving players getting two feet down (and maybe a third, e.g., #DezCaughtIt) while going to the ground but not keeping control of the ball — plays in which the expectations of players, owners, coaches, fans, and media conflict with the ruling on the field and in the replay booth — will now result in a decision that the ball was caught, with the replay standard (if applied correctly) unable to overturn the ruling.

Or maybe not.

“There are going to be four or five plays like this every year where everybody says, ‘That’s got to be a catch. It looks like a catch,'” Blandino said. “On the playground, that’s a catch. In the school yard, that’s a catch. But it’s not under our rule, because he did not have the ball long enough to be a runner before he got to the ground.”

So instead of giving the people what they want (and, in turn, setting the stage for more catches, yards, and touchdowns), the NFL will continue to defy the expectations of its stakeholders and customers. Which will set the stage for more controversy and criticism and scrutiny.

 

[Mr. Scot]

People have been worried for a while that refs would use replay as a crutch.

Per this story, they're being told to do just that.

But what happens when a team is out of challenges?

[SCP]

Blandino is an idiot. Not sure who he blew to get his job but it must have been a humdinger.

[Mr. Scot]

I wasn't a big Mike Perreira fan.

I'd welcome Perreira back with open arms if it meant dumping Blandino.

[top dawg]

Anyone with any type of insight can see that Blandino's proposal will to lead to multiple trainwrecks per season...The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

 

 

[Razeyfingers]

If you want to empower referees to take over a game, this is how you would go about doing it. 

 

[The NFL Shield At Midfield]

32 minutes ago, SCP said:

Blandino is an idiot. Not sure who he blew to get his job but it must have been a humdinger.

he even kind of looks like he's going to wipe his mouth

[KillerKat]

And people say the NFL isn't rigged lol

[KillerKat]

whatever happened to two feet down = catch? How did we evolve to this?

[GRWatcher]

The big problem, of course, is that defaulting to "incomplete" automatically puts those they deem with insufficient proof to overturn the call at odds of being bad calls ............. again. What's that definition of insanity? Continuing to do the same thing over & over in hopes that the outcome will change. 

8 minutes ago, KillerKat said:

whatever happened to two feet down = catch? How did we evolve to this?

They changed the definition a couple of years ago to be something like: the receiver needs to become a runner (RB) after securing the ball to complete the catch. Which is a stupid way to put it. That's when all the trouble about completed catches began because a receiver can catch a ball & end up not moving from the spot where he caught it.

[motocross_cat]

Ball cant touch the ground and must be inbounds....what is so damn hard about these catch rules...

[KillerKat]

26 minutes ago, GRWatcher said:

The big problem, of course, is that defaulting to "incomplete" automatically puts those they deem with insufficient proof to overturn the call at odds of being bad calls ............. again. What's that definition of insanity? Continuing to do the same thing over & over in hopes that the outcome will change. 

They changed the definition a couple of years ago to be something like: the receiver needs to become a runner (RB) after securing the ball to complete the catch. Which is a stupid way to put it. That's when all the trouble about completed catches began because a receiver can catch a ball & end up not moving from the spot where he caught it.

why change it though?

[GRWatcher]

1 minute ago, KillerKat said:

why change it though?

lol You're asking the wrong person, if you're asking me, because I'm not that crazy. ;)

[Jangler]