Tuesday, December 10, 2002 :::
If you weren't tolerant of football entries, The Dean and I would have scared you off quite a while ago, so let me discuss a minor change I'd like to see in the replay rule.Just a few minutes ago, the Miami Dolphins were on the wrong side of a questionable call in their game against the Bears. They can't challenge it. This isn't because it's one of those "judgment calls" that can never be challenged -- it's because the Dolphins have already challenged two calls this game, and that's the limit.
I can see why they want to limit the frequency of challenges, but a challenge doesn't succeed if the instant replay is ambiguous, and a team that issues a challenge and loses is charged one of their time-outs. Even if you don't consider this sufficient to discourage frivolous challenges, it seems to me that since the Dolphins won both of their challenges, they ought to be allowed an other.
So I think the NFL should change it's instant-replay rules to only penalize teams for challenges that they lose. This wouldn't banish the forces of darkness forever from the earth, but it seems pretty common-sense to me.
Incidentally, the Dolphins aren't in any jeopardy of losing, anyway. Also incidentally, I'd prefer that they were.
::: posted by Steven at 12:11 AM
