NFL's New Playoff Officiating Procedures Reportedly Won't Be Used in '16 Season

The NFL is introducing rule changes for officials during the 2015 postseason but will not implement them during the 2016 season, a league source told Mike Florio of NBC Sports' Pro Football Talk.

The changes focus on allowing NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino to assist referees during instant replays, wrote Florio on Sunday:

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Earlier this week, the Competition Committee recommended unanimously for the 2015 playoffs the expanded use of the communication system previously installed to allow the league office to assist the referee during replay review. Starting in the wild-card round, NFL V.P. of officiating Dean Blandino will be able to assist referees with administrative issues relating to three key areas: (1) proper down and distance; (2) penalty enforcement; and (3) game-clock issues. That process won’t be adopted for use during the regular season because it will be difficult if not impossible to properly oversee the various administrative issues arising in the many games that begin at 1:00 p.m. ET and 4:05 p.m. ET/4:25 p.m. ET — without expanding the responsibilities well beyond Blandino and his primary lieutenant for these issues, former NFL on-field official Al Riveron.

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Owners are expected to pass a vote in March to keep these rules in postseason play moving forward. But according to Florio, with the number of games and different kickoff times, it's not likely the league will use the rules in the regular season any time soon, since "the concern is that extra attention given to, for example, prime-time games would create a competitive disadvantage with respect to the teams playing during the Sunday afternoon time slots."

It would be great if the NFL could implement these rules during the regular season, but that does not seem feasible at this point.

The league—rightfully so—is at least trying to improve its officiating during the most important games of the season. While accuracy of plays is a big deal for fans, so are penalties. Although certain calls are subjective, all fans have opinions, especially when it comes to their teams. 

Robert Klemko of Sports Illustrated tweeted Blandino on Sunday after what he felt was a missed call on the New York Giants' Odell Beckham Jr.:

Per Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk, while Blandino will be helping with some replay calls, he said for now he is staying away from penalties:

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This does not involve penalties. This does not involve the initiating of a flag or picking up a flag. When there’s a conference on the field, we in New York will not be part of that conference. We will not be listening in, talking to the officials. This is strictly a safety net in the isolated instance that there’s an issue with the administration of the game. It’s just using the technology to have one more resource to get it right. That’s the goal of this. It will not involve penalties and it will not involve communicating with the referee after every play, after penalties are called.

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Officiating is always tricky, and the NFL has done a great job of making replays better each season. It's not beneficial to drastically change the rules every year, so this is a step in the right direction.

As time goes on and technology advances, there certainly will be ways to improve officiating even more. It will be interesting to see how the new system works in the playoffs, which could help determine if, and what, changes will be made during the regular season.