Penalties, Challenges and Booth Reviews ... UGH!!

Submitted by BlueInDallas on

Is anyone else having trouble watching football games this year with all the penalties, challenges, and booth reviews?

It seems as though there is a penalty on every other play of NFL games (though many are declined) which is so difficult to watch. The use and number of challenges in the NFL are annoying too. Yesterday, GB's head coach challenged a play when he had no challenges left. The ref took a few minutes to figure that out and then didn't charge GB with a timeout or a penalty. Earlier in the game, the refs took a few minutes to conclude that a fumble recovery was not a reviewable play. Ridiculous.

Regarding college football, I find myself holding my breath after every positive play by Michigan and yelling for Tate to quickly run a play because I just know that there will be a long booth review and then a questionable final judgment call. Finally, why does it take 10 minutes to overturn a call on the field? If it takes that long, then its not indisputable evidence, right?

Gerald R. Ford

November 16th, 2009 at 12:16 PM ^

Agreed, and why don't we have a called running play in which the team gets to the line as fast as possible when a review would potentially be detrimental? I saw this over the weekend in one particulary game where a receiver was definitely out of bounds on a long play. No review took place and the play stood because the quick run was called ASAP.

MaizeyBlue

November 16th, 2009 at 7:17 PM ^

I have probably said that "I hate instant replay" about 1,000,000 times. The only sport I find it reasonable is tennis. It takes 5 seconds!

Why do these things happen:

A team takes a timeout, get their play set and then when they come back from timeout the ref announces the previous play is under review. What were they doing during the timeout? (happened to ND on saturday night) They lost the ball, and their timeout.

When a ball is thrown low and its called a catch and they show one replay and it bounces, but it still takes 3 minutes to review the play. Don't we have the technology to be like "dude, ref, it bounced put it back on the 35 with 3:17. Instead teams are forced to hope that the replay official buzzes down in time so the play is challenged. If a team hurries to the line isn't that reason enough to say "hey lets take a look at this" because it was obviously a close play.

The ball is fumbled and the play is blown dead, except the play isn't dead, you better recover the fumble even though the whistle blew. How does this make any sense? Not to mention I swear some refs swallow their whistles if they think its close just to let it play out and then go review it after. Even though sometimes teams don't have enough time to challenge the play, or don't have challenges left.

Lastly, when the review the play they get the call WRONG! How do you overturn something and have it be WRONG?

I hate instant replay.