When the NFL teamed up with Hawk-Eye Innovations to introduce a new interface for replay reviews for the 2021 season, one hoped it would shorten delays by generating instant access to every available camera angle -- meaning dozens of feeds and not just what the broadcast can provide. As it turns out, the league has curtailed the amount of time it spends reviewing in-game decisions, but it did so through more organic means.
The number of reviews has dropped 43% from the previous four-year average through the first three weeks of the season -- from 1.4 per game over 2017-20 to 0.8 this year -- powered mostly by a plunge in coaches challenges. A series of factors have coincided to diminish them, most notably a new rule authorizing replay officials to notify the referee of obvious mistakes in real time. In the process, the NFL has its lowest average time of game through three weeks in at least the past four seasons (3:04:15).
You can view this development in a variety of ways, depending on your opinion of replay and the current state of NFL officiating. It doesn't necessarily mean that officials are getting more of their original calls right, and conversely, there is no evidence that the league is trying to phase out replay altogether. So what should we make of the curtailing of reviews, and is it a trend we expect to continue?
What has happened, as people inside and outside the game have said this month, is that the league has experienced some early success in streamlining the officials' backstop. At the very least, it has created new disincentives for both coaches and replay officials to initiate reviews. It's an unquestionably positive development for the game, and one that almost certainly has played a role in the drama of the first 48 games of the season.
Although it is not announced formally during games, replay officials are using the new rule to correct on-field crews multiple times per game on average, according to sources. (The NFL has not publicized the specific numbers.) ESPN officiating analyst John Parry, speaking before Monday night's broadcast of the Dallas Cowboys' 41-21 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, said he witnessed instances of it in each of the first four games he worked as an analyst this year, including the preseason.
"I don't think there's any doubt that the number of challenges has been reduced and impacted by the ability to fix some things on their own pretty quickly," Parry said. "And that's a good thing, because otherwise most of them would have required a coach's challenge to correct in the past."
One notable example came in the Week 2 Monday night game between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. In the second quarter, referee Adrian Hill's crew initially ruled that Lions quarterback Jared Goff had fumbled when the ball left his hand. But the call was quickly changed to an incomplete pass when, according to Parry, the replay official stationed at Lambeau Field alerted Hill that the initial replays clearly showed Goff's hand moving forward. (During nationally televised games, the NFL often provides real-time information to the broadcast booth.)
The NFL has provided replay officials with Hawk-Eye technology this season that allows them to access every camera angle instantly, rather than waiting for them to be shown on a broadcast. According to Dan Cash, managing director of Hawk-Eye's North America region, the software plugs directly into the broadcaster's truck and can display up to 48 camera angles on demand, although most games have far fewer cameras on site.
It had never sat well, either with the league or broadcasters, that replay review depended in part on a director finding and airing the best angles quickly enough to beat the next snap. So the NFL began experimenting with ways to access the camera feeds directly during the 2019 season and had planned to implement the change in 2020 but postponed it for a year given the constraints of playing last season at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This is what a lot of the leagues have been trending toward -- having their own control of the video," Cash said. "This gives them the camera angles quicker, without the wait. It lets them make the decision and speed up the game. That's the driver of this technology."
If all goes well, the benefits here will go overlooked. But if a call is reversed in a game you're watching seemingly without evidence -- such as the Week 2 reversal of a touchdown by Tennessee Titans receiver Julio Jones -- chances are that replay officials in New York saw an angle that never made it onto the broadcast.
Faster and fewer game stoppages for replay review are welcomed, of course, but not all of this trend has been intentional. Coaches are clearly holding back on throwing their challenge flags, in some cases because replay assistants cleaned up the issue first. But they are holding back also because the league's decision-making process is under transition in a way coaches can't predict.
Parry hinted at this development before the season started, but the numbers are dramatic. Coaches threw three challenge flags in Week 1, not a single one in Week 2 -- for the first time since at least 1999 -- and then nine of them in Week 3. The total of 12 challenges through three weeks is 62% lower than the previous four-year average.
Publicly, the NFL has said its two senior vice presidents of officiating -- Walt Anderson and Perry Fewell -- have supervisory responsibility over replay decisions. Russell Yurk, previously vice president of replay, has been reassigned to another role. Behind the scenes, it is clear that Anderson is making many but not all of the decisions, as some reviews are farmed out to lower-level staffers in the league's game day center in New York.
Anderson was hired in 2020 to focus on training and developing officials, with no mention of replay duties in his job description. Fewell, before he joined the league office at about the same time as Anderson, was a longtime assistant coach and defensive coordinator.
"Walt's expertise is on-field officiating and he wants to improve it," Parry said. "And Perry Fewell has never officiated. He knows defense. That's how he's made his living. If coaches challenge, are they getting Walt? Are they getting someone else? It can be tough to tell when there are multiple games going on at the same time. Ultimately, I think knowing which one of them is making the decision is important and should be transparent because they see the game through a different lens.
"These coaches are very smart people. They're very in tune with preparation and they prepare for everything, including scheming toward the crew they will have and knowing who is going to make that decision. If I were a coach, going into Week 1, I'm thinking that unless the call is a train wreck, I'm not going to give up my timeout for this challenge."
Indeed, five of the 12 plays challenged by coaches this season have been reversed. That 42% reversal rate is higher than the previous four-year average through three weeks (34%).
Coaches who have thrown their flag, sometimes in a fit of rage, have come to regret it. Packers coach Matt LaFleur, for example, was angered Sunday night when referee Jerome Boger's crew ruled a fourth-quarter pass to San Francisco 49ers receiver Mohamed Sanu Sr. a completion. Initial replays showed the ball hit the ground. It was not obvious that Sanu lost control of the ball, however, and the original call was upheld.
"I've got to definitely do a better job of controlling my emotions there," LaFleur said. "To me it seemed like I thought I saw the ball move. Matter of fact, when I saw it live, I thought it was incomplete, just from my vantage point because I had a pretty good view of it. But apparently the officials in New York felt differently."
In part due to that decision, the Packers weren't able to stop the clock at the end of the 49ers' final possession and the start of their own. Fortunately for LaFleur, quarterback Aaron Rodgers engineered a game-winning drive in 37 seconds anyway, capped by kicker Mason Crosby's 51-yard field goal.
Overall, however, fewer challenges can lead to more timeouts saved for executing dramatic end-game comebacks. There have been 10 winning scores on the final play of games this season -- including Crosby's field goal -- the most in the league through three weeks since 1970, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
In other words, fewer replays and more efficient reviews have contributed to faster, more efficient and more exciting games in the early part of the 2021 season. Who would have guessed it?