Two really stupid things happened in the NFL today, and they’re directly related to each other.
We’ll start off with Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s ridiculous comments at the NFL’s coaches breakfast this morning. He said, "I'd like to eliminate instant replay, honestly. That would be my No. 1 thing. Let the officials call the game. That's just my opinion. I try not to play that game of 'wish-list,' you know what I mean?" The notion that the NFL should get rid of instant replay is so patently absurd that I cannot use the usual “smart to stupid” scale in judging this freezing cold take. Instead, I’ll use the “mildly dumb to Tucker Boynton (a take so bad one questions why the world is so dark and cruel)” scale. Yup there it is. A full on ~TB take.
Gruden says we should, “Let the officials call the game,” and Jon, I have news for you--they already do. In fact, the only reason that plays go to instant replay is if the officials can’t make a ruling (inside of two minutes) or if a coach challenges the play, which almost always means the call is at least somewhat in question. Gruden and the band of anti-instant replay morons would rather the wrong call be made than the right call be made for some ridiculous reasons that no one with a brain can fully comprehend. Said reasons are at a level of idiocy that only the likes of Rob Parker or Max Kellerman could completely understand.
To those who suggest that instant replay should be eliminated because it takes up too much time, let me be perfectly clear:
I WANT THE RIGHT CALLS TO BE MADE AND I’M WILLING TO WAIT A FEW MINUTES FOR THIS PROCESS TO OCCUR!
I put that in all caps, so hopefully you can envision me yelling those words. Very important that I paint a picture for you.
It should be obvious, yet it seems it isn’t, so I will reiterate: We are keeping instant replay because it allows the refs to make the right call more often than if they did not have replay. That is the bottom line.
Now, moving onto the second dumb thing that happened today, the NFL updated the catch rule and has made the situation far worse than it was. The most blatantly ridiculous decision was to keep the part of the rule that says a player has made a catch when he has either made a “football move” (this part I don’t mind) or (here’s the dumb part) “an ability to perform such an act.” What the hell does that mean? Does anyone know what the “ability to perform such an act” means? Anyone? This is going to be an absolute disaster. I have no doubt about it.
Another part of the rule that has been changed is the “survive the ground” portion, which originally mandated that players control the ball throughout the process of the catch (I know this is something so complicated that the sad little Steelers couldn’t figure it out; cry me a river you whiny little babies). Now, plays like the infamous Calvin Johnson drop, which you can watch here, will be called a catch. If you watch the Johnson play, you will clearly see that he made no attempt to just fall to the ground. Instead, he tried to brace his fall and, thinking he had already made the catch, he just whipped the ball at the ground and got up celebrating like an idiot, trying to pretend like he didn’t know he had just messed up. The play was correctly called an incomplete pass. With this rule change, you will see more players “catching” the ball and then throwing it on the ground so they can brace their fall more easily. You will see players “catch” the ball and then the ball will come flying out, but it will still be called a completion. You will hate it, because it won’t look like a catch (because it isn’t a catch), but you, the NFL fan, has no one but yourself to blame for what is coming, as you put immense pressure on the NFL to change a rule that was fine already.
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