We may be getting closer to seeing penalty flags come from officials who are not on the field.
In his Monday press conference, commissioner Roger Goodell suggested that either replay assistants in the stadium or potentially officials monitoring games at league headquarters in New York could call penalties to correct an “obvious error.”
Goodell was asked about the general state of officiating and began his answer by praising the league’s officials.
“I’m so amazed at how good our officials are,” Goodell said. “We spend time all week looking at various angles and still debating it a week later. These guys have to make a split-second decision, and the men and women on our field are incredible. I think they’ve proven over and over again they’re really wonderful at what they do.
“On the other hand,” Goodell continued, “it’s a difficult sport to officiate. It’s fast. It’s quick. And we have to be able to use technology, in my view, to try to prevent the obvious errors. Now, they’re not all obvious. I think, depending on which team you’re for, they’re obvious in your eyes potentially. But at the end of the day, we see that if there’s an obvious error, we need to be able to fix it. And I think technology can help that.”
Goodell added that replay assist “has been a terrific advancement for us.”
“It’s been done quickly. It’s been able to address those issues before a challenge is even made. We need to expand that,” Goodell said. “We need to bring that into different categories, potentially personal fouls. Should we be able to work on the officials who are upstairs, the replay officials, or New York depending on the circumstances — we should have the discussion, should they be able to throw a flag, so that if a flag isn’t down, they can put a flag if it’s an obvious error. There obviously has to be structure to that.
“There has to be a lot of discussion about how that happens and when. But I think all those things are things that the competition committee will spend some time on.”
