I applaud Commissioner Ambrosie for taking the bull by the horns and doing something about the ridiculous amount of challenges allowed in the game but I think he might have gone too far in the other direction.
Why should a team be penalized by poor refereeing and have to use it’s challenge in the first quarter on a incredibly horrible call? The latest example was Friday night when a Ticat receiver clearly caught a ball out of bounds but it was called a catch. Stamp coach Dickenson had to use his one challenge allowed and now was without a tool to argue with for the rest of the game.
My proposal is this–Still only allow one challenge, but if you win then you are allowed another until you lose. I know the obvious answer if improve the officiating but that’s not going to change overnight.
Any other ideas? I don’t want to get what is a reviewable call because I believe that’s a different topic that has been discussed here before.
These Coaches with their pout face, now having to use their Challenge flag to use on obvious missed calls have no one to blame but themselves for the blatant abuse of the privilege originally given to them to begin with, especially when they had their 1 free one.
Make no mistake, It was the Coaches that abused and bent the challenge rules, even designing plays having Receivers running into DB's intentionally to get PI/IC calls on 2nd down plays.
I would say Dickenson, Maas and O'Shea were the worst abusers!
You abuse it, you lose it!
That being said I agree with bobo, one per half, no carryover
I'm OK with one per half as a compromise. No carry overs and no additional challenges if they get one right.
It slows the game too much. There are enough plays over the corse of 60 minutes where a bad ref call shouldn't make a difference. So if they keep it as is that will be OK as well.
Two thumbs up Oskeewee! The Dickenson example fits to a T. I am all for a coach using his one challenge. BUT… if he’s right and the refs got it wrong he should get to keep his challenge. In fact he should be able to keep his challenge until he’s wrong. Why not? What are the odds that he will continually be right? And if the coach is right frequently then the officiating needs to be looked at.
In tennis a player can challenge as many times as he wants in a given set- as long as he’s right. The number of times he can be wrong is limited to 3 [sometimes 4]. Once he reaches his quota that’s it for the challenges during that set. For me the issue is not the number of challenges coaches may be given in a game. The issue is why does the coach have to be punished for being right?
If the CFL wants to use challenges then allow one challenge per half. The challenge in that half is extinguished when the half is over or when the coach is wrong- whichever comes first. Allow the same thing to happen in the second half of the game. That to me would be quite fair. The coach knows that if he’s wrong he forfeits his right to challenge for the remainder of the half. In Dickenson’s case he was right without a doubt. It was not a critical time in the game but that is not the point. The opposing team did not earn the completion but they would have gotten it had Dickenson not challenged.
I think these challenges are valuable and actually add a little more drama to the game but their use just needs to be tweaked a little more. Refs are human and in my opinion they for the most part do a good job. No one really knows how the ref could have possible made that mistake in the Dickenson example. Eventually the CFL will get it right.
But here is a question regarding the Dickenson challenge. Let us say Dickenson had already used up his challenge and this play followed. What then? Answer? He would just have to suck it up and live with it just like coaches did in the days when there was no Command center, no review, no challenges. One coach would know he got burned. [Well actually both coaches would know who got burned] The other coach would be smiling because he got away with one. What the hey. Such is sports.
It is a shame - Command Centre, a simple call that could have being corrected on the Ref mishap on the field. The CFL should fine themselves on a problem they created in the first place.
The CFL finally takes some real action to fix the disastrously broken system that is video review and you want them to take a step backwards? Back towards lunacy?
Dickenson is the worst coach to use in any argument to give coaches back any of the challenges that have be removed from them as he was one of the worst for wasting them on fishing expeditions that only slowed down the game.
Reduce the calls that are reviewable, change the conditions under which there is an automatic review and fire the person/people currently in the command centre and replace them with competent individuals who understand both the game and the rule book.
Under no circumstances should coaches be given more than 1 challenge. They should be given none and allow the on field officials ask for a review as is done in rugby.
It was a disaster when there were unlimited challenges on penalties. Teams were drawing up plays to draw an illegal contact when the play was designed to go the other way. As turnovers are reviewed anyway, I don't see any need to add in another challenge just to allow for fishing expeditions.
Having said that, if there's a blatant missed PI or phantom call, I have no problem with the added eye in the sky making the call. Put the officiating in the hands of the officials, not the coaches.
Or, just fix the fishing problem by actually applying the rules on illegal contact the way they are written in the rule book.
[b][u]RULE 6 - PASSING[/u][/b]
[b]SECTION 4 – FORWARD PASS[/b]
[b]Article 8 – Interference Before A Pass Is Thrown[/b]
By Team B
Prior to a forward pass being thrown, [u]a Team B player may:[/u]
(a) In the zone up to five yards in advance of the line of scrimmage, contact a Team A eligible receiver provided the receiver is face up and in front of the defender. Such contact may be maintained until the receiver moves beyond either
(i) a position even with the defender or
(ii) the end of the five yard zone. All other contact by Team B is deemed illegal and shall be penalized L10 PLS.
[u](b) Beyond the five yard zone from the line of scrimmage, use his hands to shed contact initiated by the Team A receiver. [/u]
Prior to a forward pass being thrown, a Team B player may not:
(a) Beyond the five yard zone, create or initiate contact that redirects, restricts, or impedes the Team A receiver in any way. Such contact is “Illegal Contact On A Receiver?.
Illegal contact on a receiver should only be called against the defender if he initiates the contact. These deliberate runs at the defender to draw a penalty need to be called against the receiver.
If it takes 5 minutes of reviewing a play in slo-mo then that negatively impacts the game and the call is clearly not conclusive on the video. 90 seconds is sufficient time to determine if a player was in/out of bounds, broke/did not break the plane or knee was down/not down. As for PI, if they must keep PI as a reviewable play they limit the CC to full speed ONLY. I can find PI on any play where there was any contact if so slow it down enough.
Thinking about it again, one challenge is enough if one of the main goals is to keep the flow of the game going. People were saying that it was slowing the game down too much.
Wasn’t the objective to prevent bad calls from affecting the outcomes of games? That’s what people were saying years ago. In which case, one challenge is not enough.
Maybe time limits on challenges are a good idea, as that would allow blatantly bad calls (e.g. the out of bounds catch in the Stamps-Ticats game) to be corrected. But I do like the idea of getting the right calls made - as long as the rules are applied correctly (see my previous post).
So how does RTP affect the outcome of the game? Or illegal contact on a receiver on the opposite side of the field from the play? Wanna know what isaffecting the outcome of games? A CC that is incapable of watching a piece of film and correctly applying the rules.
Coaches have proven they will abuse any system that allows them to call for a play review, the league refuses to admit it made a mistake in allowing certain penalties to be reviewable (PI, Illegal Contact, Roughing The Passer) and they refuse to admit the command centre is so drastically broken that video review is doing more harm than good.
The objective is not only not being met it is having the opposite affect on games it was supposed to. Video review is broken beyond repair.
I didn’t find the challenges slowing the game down but I do think there needs to be a limit. If we go with one challenge that’s fine BUT…
If a coach questions a call and the call goes in favor of that coach then why should he lose his challenge? If a challenge flag per half is too many then make it one and the coach can uses it until he loses the challenge. A smart coach is going to choose wisely. He will want to be absolutely sure that he’s going to be right.
Dickenson will be throwing 3-4 flags a game because he will start running those plays with illegal contact built into them as he did before, only now he will have an unlimited number of opportunities to pull this. One per game is too much, but if coaches must have a challenge then that is all they get, one.
moses brings up an excellent point and a new skill set for a receiver could very well end up being how to fool the refs into thinking such a play by a receiver is illegal contact agains't the defender.