WEEKLY WHINE

That was a terrible call

In the world of sports, television announcers are frequently very busy in the area of being noisy. Dick Vitale is your prototype, even though this territory is usually seen in the case of football announcers. They especially like to be noisy about bad officiating. When the officiating is bad, the game suffers, and they make a tremendous fuss about it. You'll hear them say things like "That was a bad call", "He did not get two feet down", or "See that? That's an uncatchable ball".

They've received an unusual quantity of things about which to shout in the past several weeks, some of which is the fault of the officials. There was the Thanksgiving coin toss, the Buffalo-New England interference, the Testaverde touchdown. As a result of these events, the National Football League considered reinstating instant replay for the playoffs, but the competition committee decided against it. However, it now seems probable for the return of some form of replay next season, in stark contrast with previous decisions. How did this come about?

The first factor is that each of these calls was clearly refuted by television footage. On Thansgiving, the captains of the Steelers and Lions met for the overtime coin toss in a 16-16 game that Pittsburgh needed to keep pace with Jacksonville in the AFC Central. Steeler Jerome Bettis called something, and the coin came up tails. Referee Phil Luckett announced that Detroit had won the toss, so they chose the football and proceeded directly to a winning field goal. The controversy: Bettis says that he called tails, and replays seem to show the same thing. Three days later, another disputed call took place in Foxboro. As the clock wound down, Drew Bledsoe passed to Terry Glenn in the end zone, but the pass fell incomplete. Buffalo's Henry Jones was charged with interference, giving New England the football at the one yard line, from which they scored to win. As Jones claimed, and as the replays indicated, there was no such contact. In the Meadowlands the following Sunday, Vinny Testaverde ran for the end zone, scoring for a last second victory. But returning to the replay, it could be seen that Testaverde was tackled at the one yard line - the football was nowhere near the goal line.

More to the point, each call decided the outcome of a game and in some cases directly affected the participating teams' playoff situations. Since Pittsburgh never touched the football in the overtime period, it didn't have any chance to avoid the problem and was handed a loss. That dropped the Steelers to 7-5-0, and they fell two games behind the Jaguars that week. Jacksonville, of course, proceeded to the division title, whilst that loss began a five game losing streak for Pittsburgh, absent from the playoffs this year. The interference call on the Bills gave the Patriots the opportunity to score the winning touchdown on a one yard pass to Ben Coates. Both teams were 7-5-0 after that game, and the Pats split their last four games to edge into the playoffs. Had that game been reversed, Buffalo probably would have finished in front of Miami and New England probably would have finished behind Oakland or Seattle, out of the playoffs. Testaverde's last second "touchdown" gave the New York Jets a win over the Seahawks, who were 6-7-0 after that game. It represented the deathblow to their playoff chances, a decisive going-home party. Had these three calls gone the opposite ways, the AFC wild card playoffs may have been Miami at Buffalo and Jacksonville or Seattle at Pittsburgh instead of Buffalo at Miami and New England at Jacksonville.

One even affected someone's career. Dennis Erickson knew that his job was on the line: playoffs-or-else was the ultimatum from the Seattle front office, and the outcome was else, due at least slightly to that call. It was not the only factor, or even the most important factor. Regardless, it was a factor, and although some numbers have very many factors, there are prime numbers that have only two factors. One, of course, has only one factor. So Dennis Erickson is now looking for a coaching job, and the team is likely to start spending some more free agent money.

As if you couldn't tell, most of these effects are very farfetched. However, it can't be disputed that one play can at least change the outcome of a football game. So the analysts are giving the following argument: If we have the technology to make more calls right, why don't we use it? Refs continually tell us that the sign of a good officiating crew is one that gives you the following impression: "I wonder who the ref was in that game". As soon as a good system can be found, replay is a means of anonymity for NFL officials.