Challenge replay idea

For those who don’t know, there was a predictable challenge tonight in the CGY@SSK game on a fumble by Burris that resulted in a SSK TD. The question was, “was it a fumble or a forward pass?” Pretty standard.

That whole play is the head referee’s call. Fumble, recovery, forward progress or touchdown going the other way is all covered by the head referee – almost exclusively. Now the challenge flag comes out so the head referee goes under the hood to re-evaluate his own call.

Here’s my question - as a matter of optics would it not be better that another oficial goes under the hood when the head referee’s call is the one being challenged? The obvious choice, to me, is the Umpire. I’m curious what others think about this - to me it’s kind of like the cop who gave you the speeding ticket also being the judge in your court case to dispute the ticket.

I’m also happy to admit if I’m overthinking the whole issue.

I don't think there is a problem with a ref reviewing his own call. I think every ref in the league would make a correction upon further review and thereby admit he made a mistake the first time. The reason is simple. If he blows the call the 2nd time under the hood he will just make himself look way worse than if he corrects it. Oh and also he won't be a referee long in this league if he doesn't make the correct call under the hood.

Oh and also head referee should do all reviews since he is the guy in chrage, that should be his job. And don't complicate the system more by making another offical do it on some occasions.

Don't forget that there's an official upstairs who helps make the calls on the review. I don't know who gets the final say though.

The head ref makes the final call, but he does get help from upstairs on every review this year. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if the upstairs guy actually made the call, but the onfield guys have a perspective as well.