Let's Do Some Good for this World, like Change Pass Interference

I usually don’t enjoy people whose catchphrase is “we need to do better” because it usually comes from someone haranguing others to make a change in the way they think….but we demand to accomplish better. Something like that.

There are a bunch of ways to get a zebra to throw a yellow towel at you, and none of them impacts pigskin sporting contests like pass interference. Whether it be by throwing it when it’s not warranted, or keeping it in the waist pocket when it’s blatantly obvious the turf could use some yellow decoration, there’s no other penalty that upsets the digestive system like this one.

Years ago Michigan Football had a mediocre year of football. They finished 2004 with a Big 10 title shared with Iowa but had the better claim for a Rose Bowl berth due to their higher ranking. So they headed west, young man, and had an absolute classic of a game with Vince Young and the Texas Longhorns. They lost in a last second field goal but I cherish that game. It went down to the wire and could have gone either way.

I was excited for the 2005 season. 2004 was the advent of Chad Henne and Mike Hart; two true freshman who stepped up and won a mess of games when the guy in front of them went down with injury. Both of them were four year starters and left the school with all the meaningful records at their respective positions. 2005 was going to be great.

And yet, it wasn’t ever to be. Many people said the game had passed Lloyd Carr by. He proved in 2006 that wasn’t the case. He just had a chubby and out of shape team in 2005, along with nagging offensive line injuries. But at Michigan, a mediocre year can still end with a bowl berth. They finished their regular season with another hard-fought loss to Ohio State and a 7-4 record. Good enough for some now defunct bowl game in the heart of Texas against the Nebraska Cornhuskers; coached by a knocked-down-a-peg Bill Calahan who had failed in the pros as the Raider’s coach. Mike Tirico and Kirk Herbstreit, in the middle of their ascension to two of football’s preeminent broadcasting voices, called the game. At the end, they said it was the worst officiated game they had ever seen. In the name of fairness, they excused the refs for being Sunbelt Conference refs who were’t used to the speed of the Big 10 and Big 12 teams. And that right there is the crux of my argument.

You see, of all the blown calls in that game, the most egregious and one with the most impact was a missed pass interference call. Michigan; trailing by a score, had driven all the way down to the red zone and attempted a fourth down pass to Mario Manningham (who went on to have a fine pro career, catching a huge desperation pass in the second Super Bowl Eli Manning took from a superior Patriots team) who upon review, was clearly hooked by the defender on his left arm. Pass interference as revealed by slow-motion replay.

When Michigan lost I remarked to my dad that since the 2000’s had ushered in the era of instant replay, and football fans hadn’t left the game en masse even though it slowed down play (I can’t watch two games in one day without telling my kids to spend time with themselves), so we should add it to the slew of plays it’s legal, nay necessary, to review.

Another ten or so years passed before the NFL did something about it. In that time, there have been so many atrocious pass interference calls or non-calls it’s time we admit that massaging rules won’t very much do much because it is still up to human judgment. We need to take human judgment out of the mix. NFL, and even some NCAA players run like Jean Luc-Picard is inside their head commanding “Warp 1, engage” and refs, umpires, line judges, constables, thanes, dukes, and aldermen just can’t keep up with them. That’s not a judgment on their character or ability. It’s just become inhumanly possible to get all of these calls right without technology swooping in and saving the day.

I say that because as of writing this post, my beloved Wolverines have fallen prey to bad interference calls and non-calls in the last couple weeks. So have my beloved Lions. My beloved adopted Patriots and their 8-0 record just can’t be bothered with the troubles of mere mortals, but they’ve had a few also. As has the rest of the league. The NFL owners addressed this by adding pass interference to the challenge rules. But coaches don’t get more challenges, and it’s still a gamble because the indisputable blah blah blah is still in the mix. There might be more bad pass interference calls in one game than a coach is afforded with the win-two-buy-one-free system. Those calls might affect the game and his ability to keep his job. This minor change was just a half-measure, a band-aid, a painkillers-and-surgery-when-a-lifestyle-change-is-the-real-fix kind of action.

When a player is called for it but merely sneezed in the wrong direction, the booth should radio down as such. When a player isn’t called for it but sneaked a jersey tug shielded by his body, the booth should do their (its?) job. Will it result in less respect for the referees and their authority? Possibly, but is the league oozing with respect for them anyway? Have they set aside a month of wearing black and white striped patches on their jerseys to raise some kind of awareness, hmm? Do they have a Referees’ Appreciation Day, hmm? Are the league and referees offices in the same building sharing potluck responsibilities and that great view overlooking the bay, hmm? Sending a lot of Edible Arrangements on their birthdays, hmm? They have a great relationship that has never resulted in a strike, even worse refereeing, and a quick but necessary fix to salaries, hmm?

And these guys can adapt to the potential loss of prestige. I don’t know about you, but I have never been booed by a stadium of 60,000 people and still pressed on and finished my work day. These guys are pros. I’m sure they even know how to get out of dodge by circuitous means so chubby drunks don’t hurl violent threats at them in the parking lot because football is preeminent in their lives, their wives and children a distant second. Adding review to this element of the game will stop coaches alike from having their forehead veins popping in hi-def while the players lob obscenities at the refs. It might even better the emotional state of some weary fans along the way, if that matters to anyone. Getting it right is why review was added. So many games of the past have glaring mistakes that replay would have fixed. We have the technology.

We need to do…superlatively.