This is a 2012 article when the NFL adopted some of these new rules. Buffalo is the only smart team. I like that part that shows the time did not increase. And yesterday was an example of the commercial prolonging the game. When they came back from break a coach threw the challenge flag.
The proposal that drew the most opposition was the Buffalo Bills' suggestion to take replay officiating out of the hands of the referee and move it fully into the replay booth. The Bills were about the only team supporting that move, but don't think they aren't visionaries with their proposal.
They see the trend. Last year, replay officials were given the ability to review all scoring plays. This year, they will review all turnovers. The next step is having replay officials do all the reviews. The Bills see it coming. Eventually, all replays will be decided by a booth official.
Perhaps the holdup is waiting for 32 teams to have total confidence in the 17 replay officials. Replay officiating started with officials in the booth, but many of them were retired officials who weren't used to using television clickers and replay machines. Replay officiating died at one point, but it came back with referees doing the replay reviews on the field.
Over the past few years, the league has been trying to upgrade the replay officials. According to one source, 11 of the 17 replay officials are top notch. Until the other six catch up and gain the confidence of coaches, general managers and owners, the Bills won't win their campaign, but you can see the league is heading in that direction.
Addressing scoring plays and turnovers takes a big percentage of the reviews into the booth.
"I think if you would include scoring plays and turnovers, that would account for about 70 percent of the reviews," said Rams coach Jeff Fisher, a member of the competition committee.
Reviewing every turnover is going to slow down the game, but the competition committee doesn't believe it will damage the game. Committee chairman Rich McKay of the Falcons said the change to having all scoring plays reviewed added only one second to an average game that now lasts 3 hours, 6 minutes.
In fact, McKay thinks the turnover reviews could speed up the game because there will be fewer coaches' challenges and it will take a replay official less time than a referee to review the play.
"Potentially it could speed up the game," McKay said. "We think in the turnovers we'll have the same effect as the scoring plays. It's pretty much even."
McKay says the difference is television. The competition committee reviewed numerous instances in which there was a turnover and then the networks went to a commercial. After the commercial, a coach would throw a replay challenge flag and the game would slow down even more.
"That really slows down the game, and you'll have none of that," McKay said, adding it was a change made that wouldn't add additional game time.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7747944/nfl-owners-break-tradition-replay
