Let's Boot The Instant Replay Rule

They must be lacing up their ice skates down in the netherworld, because I have finally made good on my ancient promise to write an article about why the NFL Instant Replay Rule should be abolished. Yep, I've been threatening to write this piece since the turn of the century and now I have finally delivered. Why now you ask? What inspired me to write this after so much time has passed?

My main inspiration was the realization of my own mortality. I'm not going to be around forever. As Todd Hoyer knows, if I kick it, he has promised to perform a touching rendition of Queensryche's "Silent Lucidity" at my wake. It's going to be hard to finish this article when I'm six feet under, and even if someone slipped a laptop into my coffin, I wouldn't want to be typing during his performance. As Red says in Shawshank Redemption "Get busy living or get busy dying." In my case I chose to get busy writing.

I also felt obligated since a public declaration to write the article was made at the wedding reception of the venerable Matt Derosa after I was strong-armed by a couple of Jack and Cokes. Those guys are bastards. So without further delay·here are the reasons why the NFL needs to eliminate the instant replay rule·

#1 Reviewing the plays makes the game too long

An average football game has to be at least 3 hours. We don't need new rules that make the game even longer. Don't get me wrong, I love watching football, but I don't need to spend an extra 10 minutes every game watching the zebras peer under a hood into a little box on the field. If I want to see the back of some guy's head I can certainly find a barber and watch a couple of haircuts. Now that's living my friends. There are plenty of time- outs and delays without the replay reviews. You could do a lot of things with that extra 10 minutes, including, but not limited to: sudoku, reading, exercising, meditating, gaming, flossing, gambling·the possibilities are endless. Take back your 10 minutes.

#2 System isn't totally reliable

Just look at what happened in the NFL playoffs a few weeks ago during the Steelers/Colts contest. Troy Polamalu of the Steelers clearly intercepted Peyton Manning and officials initially ruled that Polamalu had intercepted the pass. However, after the play was challenged, the officials ruled that he did not intercept the pass. According to the following AP report it appears the official blew the call·even with the help of digital instant replay technology! Polamalu made a diving catch. When he got up to run, he fumbled the ball, then recovered. Colts coach Tony Dungy challenged and Morelli ruled Polamalu had not completed the catch, so it was an incomplete pass. About a dozen TV and scoreboard replays indicated otherwise.

#3 Slippery Slope

What's next, an instant replay rule in Major League Baseball to determine if a baseball pitch was a ball or a strike? Wait·was that a balk? Let's spend 20 minutes looking at the replay and try to figure it out! How about using it in the NBA to determine if someone was fouled in the paint? Maybe it can be used for every point of every tennis match to determine if the ball caught the back edge of the baseline or not. Let the athletes play the game and the officials do their best.

That's right, "let the officials do their best." I can accept the fact they won't make the right call every time. That's the way life works. People make mistakes. They aren't perfect. It was pretty painful back in 1998 when the Jets were playing my boys, the Seattle Seahawks (2005 NFC Champs), and the officials signaled that the Jets had scored a fourth-down touchdown to win the game by one point even though the replay clearly showed the ball was down at about the 1.5 yard line. But hey, Vinny's helmet crossed the goal line. Good enough for them.

It cost the Seahawks a trip to the playoffs and pissed me off, but I was man enough to accept that a mistake was made and move on with my life. That's the way it goes sometimes. Though I often do wonder if referee Bill Pittman was on the field that day, I'll tell you one thing, the sun still rose the next day (though it was surely obscured by a field of clouds in the Pacific Northwest) and the earth still continued to spin on its axis.

So that's what I've got to say about the Instant Replay Rule. I hope that everyone feels enlightened and will join my crusade. I would write more, but I've got to check out some shows that my Tivo recorded last night. I love that thing.