Bill Belichick Is Right: The NFL Needs More Replay

You may hate New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. You may think he cheats and is arrogant and is a jerk. That is all debatable. What isn't is that Belichick is usually right when it comes to what happens on a football field. Righter than rain. And he's correct on one of the great on-field NFL issues: game officials and replay rules.

For some time, Belichick has wanted a universal challenge—meaning anything could be challenged at any time, including penalties. It's a smart and sensible approach, so of course NFL owners voted against it.

Then came this past Monday and the end-of-game debacle in Seattle.

If Belichick was watching that game, it's likely he threw his glass of water at the TV screen and shouted, "See? Damn it! I told you!"

The day after the game, at his press conference, Belichick was asked about the play in Seattle. He said:

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I think we've seen many examples of that. I could give you several examples of games like that where a play that might have been reviewed properly in the last couple minutes of the game would have or could have changed the outcome of the game.

I mean, look, the procedures that are in place are in place. I think the officials work hard to do a good job. I think Dean [Blandino] does a really good job of communicating with the clubs and trying to get everybody on the same page. But the volume of the rules, the number of people that are involved, the closeness—I don't know if that's the right word—of so many plays, how tough it is to officiate and all the procedures that have to be dealt with, the protocols and so forth. It's a lot of volume there.

I don't really feel any differently than I've felt, and I think I've gone on record on this stuff before, so I'll just leave it at that.

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Belichick has long known the obvious. It's not just that people watching at home see bad calls and remark on them on social media—it's that blown calls irreparably alter lives. Careers end. Franchises can be made or broken.

Yet this story isn't just about replay. It's about the game-official infrastructure itself.

There is one truism that hasn't changed in some time: The game is too fast for refs.

As much as we complain about officiating, it's actually a shock more calls aren't blown considering sometimes you have refs in their 50s and 60s trying to keep up with the fastest, most powerful humans on Earth.

Few fans want to admit this, but the game officials are actually highly skilled and talented people. They are excellent at their jobs. They are also human—often, though not always, older humans.

These two issues are intertwined. We have an increasingly fast game that even the best refs with perfect vision can't keep up with and a replay system that needs an overhaul. At the very least, the league needs to adopt the Belichick viewpoint.

If you've never stood on the sideline during an NFL game, well, it's nothing like you've ever seen. The speed of the game is so much faster than it appears on television. Regardless of the quality of high definition you have, it's faster. In person, you get not only a deeper appreciation of the incredible athleticism and violence that's displayed but also of just how freaking impossible it is to ref.

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

No matter the training. No matter how professional. No matter how much refs prepare to deal with a double whammy of a thickening rule book and the increasing speed of the game, there will always be mistakes. Sometimes a lot of them. Sometimes really huge ones, such as the error that happened during the Lions-Seahawks matchup.

The NFL hates when anyone talks about its refs—and their age—when it comes to the speed of the sport. They will tell you age isn't relevant. The league will say this is why it has so many officials watching a game. There are lots of eyes on the field. One league official told me that suggesting older refs can't get the job done is ageism.

This is the conundrum the league faces. It needs experienced game officials. But what if they can't keep up? At least a half-dozen NFL coaches have told me privately over the past few years that the speed of the game is just too fast for almost any human being to efficiently monitor.

The Seahawks play is a perfect example. Quick, bang-bang play. Right in front of the official. He gets it wrong. How long did it take from the time Calvin Johnson fumbled to the ball being batted out? Three seconds? Two? It happened right in front of the official, and he still got it wrong.

Commissioner Roger Goodell, at his press conference ending the owners' meetings in New York, told reporters the NFL will again study replay extensively:

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I'm not sure I can remember since 1990 when we haven't discussed instant replay extensively with the Competition Committee and also with the membership. It clearly is going to be reviewed again. I think there are a lot of obstacles to having every play reviewed, but there are other alternatives that can deal with these kind of issues. We're going to have to address that. We've shown that we can improve the instant replay system over the years, and we will continue to do that.

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That remark shows very little with the replay system will change. The league remains inexplicably stubborn against replay for all.

Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians is in the Belichick camp. "Every week now we have a call in a game that is determining outcomes of games," he told reporters in a conference call Wednesday. "Every game seems to be another critical call that's non-reviewable."

The NFL believes such a replay-for-all system would lead to coaches using the challenge far too much, possibly dramatically slowing the game, or a coach challenging a touchdown, looking for some sort of ancillary holding call away from the play to erase it, for example. All the NFL would have to do to counter that is limit challenges to only the relevant portion of the play.

What's clear is that despite all of the training of officials and their great professionalism, they are not androids. It's simply become too fast for human beings to officiate. So, once again, Belichick is right.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.