Pete Carroll has done a 180.
At one point, he wanted to entrust officiating to the officials, without replay review. Now that replay has been baked into the NFL’s cake, Carroll thinks the league should fully embrace it in the name of getting things right.
Asked by reporters on Wednesday whether he would like to see the NFL review every play in the last two minutes of the game (Colts owner Jim Irsay recently called for this), Carroll said that, given the current use of replay review, why not go the rest of the way?
“As long as we’re subject to the replay mode, I think they should get things right,” Carroll said. “I would’ve told you for years and years, I would rather put it on the officials to call the game and let’s keep the game going. I liked it better when it was like that, but now that I’ve grown up and not kicking and screaming about it, I think we should use it. They’re trying to help as much as they can, more than ever. I think they just keep expanding their effect because we need to get it right. We need to do things right and not have to live with issues. If they think that they could do it, if they could handle it and have enough crew to handle all the games and see it, that’s a big statement for them to do every play. It would be in the best interest of getting things right. That’s really what we’d like to do.”
So he apparently believes there should be a full embrace of technology?
“Yep,” Carroll said. “I’d go with that, and now that we’re that far into it, let’s go.”
Let’s go, indeed. I’m a firm believer that the NFL’s officiating function, which dates back more than 100 years, needs to be torn down and rebuilt in light of all available technologies. The goal should be to get it right. Let’s get it right, by using any and all technologies to get there.
The NFL can either do this voluntarily, or it can wait until Congress forces it to do so, possibly through an agency that will have oversight responsibility for the NFL and other pro sports.