The Effect of the Instant Replay on NFL Officials Essay

The argument about instant replay slowing down an already slow game has one flaw, if you take a look a Professional baseball game the average running time is about three hours, that is still considered long time. However, the instant replay factor would not necessarily add much to that. In the National Football League, officials have to take a large number of aspects to the play “was he still in possession of the ball?" “Were his feet in bounds?” The only question the Major League of Baseball would have to consider is, “is he safe or out?" since checking this is not a difficult process, the implementation of instant replay will not add much time to the game.

If you asked people what the most overblown, ridiculous controversy the NFL has been involved in, most people would agree it’s Deflategate. While it took over two years to settle the case, the losing party, being Tom Brady and the Patriots, seem to have come out on top in the long run seeing how the NFL has dealt with discipline in a very sporadic way since. So my question is, “was the NFL justified in making the disciplinary decision that they made, and has that decision affected controversies after Deflategate?”

“Particularly given modern technologies that increase the ability to view controversial plays from multiple angles, and ease communication between officials” Berman claims. Not to mention they’ve even made headquarters for it “Professional sports leagues have taken steps to ease this dissension by creating headquarters for all the replays across the league” Berman continues. So it seems it’s not only the fans who want accuracy.

It is good to see the NFL take steps to better protect its players, but critics say it is long overdue. And while they are fair in that assessment, even they have to agree that the league’s stances on concussions and policies has significantly changed in the last decade.

Even though some people believe that the NFL does not need stricter rules to help prevent concussions, stricter rules are definitely needed. According to Casebook in Is Football Too Dangerous, Several NFL players have committed suicide over the last few years, and medical evidence suggests that brain damage-the consequence of years of violent on-field collisions and concussions. This evidence shows that multiple blows to the head have caused CTE in former NFL players that have played a role in their deaths. CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma (“What is CTE?”). How many more deaths are going to happen to former players before the NFL make the current rules stricter? The NFL can make the current players safer for their futures outside of football. The evidence is there to show why the NFL needs to make stricter rules.

NFL teams are too lax on their concussion protocol examination after a player’s head has been hit helmet to helmet. The NFL has protocols for injuries that any player suffers. The main one is the concussion protocol. It’s when a player is hit helmet to helmet. It’s in play due to the fact that players that have suffered a head injury have developed Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). It creates brain tumors that spread and kills your brain

The spectator of this sport has an obligation to the players of the sport, to make sure that the organization is protecting and looking out for them. Yet not only should the viewer be held accountable for the lack of communication in consequences between the player and the pro scene, but the organization of the NFL needs to make sure that their players have a full understanding of what is going on and how they need to protect the players. The current situation that is understood, contents contain implied knowledge that all parties of this table are in uniform knowledge and agreement to what comes of playing football. Finally, this should also happen at the youth level when kids are just getting into the sport, as it would better inform the parents and the kid if they understood the full

Although making helmet to helmet hits illegal will cause lower body injuries, helmet to helmet hits should be illegal in the NFL for two main reasons. First, Helmet to helmet hits causes concussions, but most importantly, after retirement, players who received several concussions develop serious medical conditions. All this proves that the NFL is doing a good thing for the players and what they are doing is going to help the players in the future. It is proven that players who received concussions during their career develop brain damage after they retired. After doing all the research on this topic, I would have to agree with the NFL by making the Helmet to helmet rule in play in order to decrease concussions, even though the players may dislike

This is very reassuring that rules in the NFL can be changed with the votes of staff and an offseason to implement them. There are many remaining factors to the solution such as enforced suspensions and enforced fines on the players doing the damage, Ryan Wilson an NFL analyst states in his article,”Burfict has now been fined or suspended eight times in 53 games and it's cost him a whopping $805,000”(2). This is one of the many players constantly being fined and never changing. The league also could definitely use more time in order to help injured players and help diagnose concussions and other medical emergencies, Stated by Jason La Canfora,”The league needs medical timeouts because in the case of Chargers safety Jahleel Addae -- who returned to a Thursday night game in October numerous times and then was later diagnosed with a concussion that would keep him out for weeks -- is one that I won't soon forget, and one that seemed preventable with a beefed-up system”(3). This

As football fans know, coaches only get 2 challenges per game and signal it by throwing a red flag onto the field. Challenges are made when coaches do not agree with the calls officials are making, so the review it. If the challenge is unsuccessful it takes a time out away from the team. A coach can not challenge if he doesn’t have at least one time out. Because of so many rules and regulations, fans believe all questionable plays should be reviewed. “The NFL should adopt the suggestion from the Patriots coach Bill Belichick that everything should be reviewable” (Florio). Officiating needs to improve but sometimes the rules of the NFL regarding review technology should take the blame. Games would be much longer if all plays were reviewable but it would also become much clearer to the audience, the coaches and players. It is biased to see teams win in view of the fact that coaches couldn’t review a certain play because their previous challenges made were unsuccessful. This is why many people are also against reviews to an extent where people consider reviewing plays shouldn’t even be allowed not

By applying these changes to a sport could make the sport that much entertaining to watch tremendously. All calls from the officials are on point and no one’s complaining because of the instant replays. Use all the tools available to help make the right call give the game more excitement and keep everything anonymous to call from the fans perspective. These plays are inherently difficult to officiate because of the speed of the game and to slow everything down the officials use instant replays to make it

Here is why. In 2015, the NFL diagnosed 271 players that had concussions. There has continued to be an increase in the number of concussed players over the past several years. With the continual increase in concussions over the years,it is a reasonable question to ask whether the NFL is doing enough to protect their players or not. I am going to start this issue by discussing a movie I am sure you have heard of. Concussion. A Forensic pathologist named Dr. Bennet Omalu was the first doctor to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in the brain of former Pittsburgh Steelers' center Mike Webster, who was 50, when he committed suicide. Dr. Omalu made the bold statement that football is the reason that Webster had mental issues, and ultimately the reason for his death. There continued to be a trend of NFL players passing at a young age due to mental health issues, and Omalu was certain that all of it was because of football. He examined the brains of these players and found correlations in their brains that suggests that the repeated blows to the head they received during their career caused severe damage. As you can imagine this discovery was a huge threat to the NFL as people and players saw this evidence and couldn't help but be scared about the outcome football has on an individual. The NFL basically just tried to cover up clear facts stated by Omalu, but eventually it became to evident to ignore. This movie made a large issue in the NFL apparent to many people and creating a film to do so was a very effective platform for displaying it. To make a long story short, since this discovery in 2002, there has been a drastic change in player safety rules, concussion protocol and guidelines, and strictness of teams to follow such protocol and guidelines. In

The NFL needs to realize how bad this is getting and how much it affects the lives of these players. Some protection against mild TBI(traumatic brain injury) are helmet standards, Biochemical testing, head-down tackling, impact velocity, and performance of newer helmets. These things are being used to try and help these concussions, but they are not fully working considering that the NFL still have many concussions a year. These people are still having the after effects of these concussions. The NFL needs to put more money into this research and help the tests that

Rules and penalties are known in advance by everyone and they are fair, consistent, and immediate. This attribute was imposed by the “referees” that were constantly walking around to make sure that the house was up to par.

American football has been around since the early 1900's. The players tackle each other until one is on the ground. Football has always been a full-contact sport. Throughout the years injuries have stayed part of the game and the NFL has taken their time to increase player safety. The NFL should increase player safety because of the injuries have occurred. Some of the injuries may be lifetime injuries. Serious brain injuries have been linked to football as, well as heart issues and other permanent heath problems.