The Arizona Cardinals and rest of the NFL will no longer be allowed to challenge pass interference in 2020
After all the screaming and yelling about the injustice the New Orleans Saints got in the 2018 NFC Championship Game against the Los Angeles Rams, the NFL instituted pass interference replay in 2019. Now, the Arizona Cardinals and the other 31 teams can forget about that going forward.
On Thursday, the NFL Competition Committee said good bye to the rule. It lasted all of a year but is is really surprising?
In theory, the idea was a good one. Pass interference, which had always been subjective, would now be put under a microscope. There were a lot of missed calls over the years but maybe none as egregious as the one against the Saints.
However, what the Cardinals and many teams found out, the officials rarely overturned challenged calls, especially early on. The Cardinals for their part saw calls get overturned both ways for them in 2019.
Part of the problem there was they still weren’t always getting the calls right upon replay, even those that seemed to be clear as day. Whether that was a crew that just didn’t want to be overruled or not, who knows?
The fact is now, it won’t be an issue. We will all go back to yelling at our television screens (and in person, maybe sometime this year). The officials do get it right many times as well its just the ones that get called wrong do seem to be blatant misses.
Hopefully the NFL will find better ways to make their officials accountable. There is no perfect system though that will make everyone happy, so going back to the old way probably makes the most sense.
Oh, and with this change, this also means the league office will also no longer be involved in any possible review, like they are say with turnovers these days. It’s back to the field officials subjectivity only again.