The old "down by contact" will now be reviewed which imho is long overdue. How many times have we seen a fumble recovery only to hear "the runner was ruled down by contact". This change was long overdue and I give the league :up: for getting this done.
Good, that hurt alot of teams last season...The worst is the guy getting tackled, ball is out then hits the ground a whole second later and down by contact is called...Much props to the league for changin this rule.
i think that the playoffs made this a neccessity -- there were some huge down by contact rulings that were 100% wrong -- that being shown on a national stage just made the league and officials look awful
I don't understand how they will do this. Are they going to have the players play after the whistle blows? That can cause a lot of injuries. Are they going to not blow the whistle at all, let the play play out, and then announce their conclusion?
Isn't this how they handle it in college? I think they instruct the refs to not blow the whistle unless they're ABSOLUTELY SURE the guy was down. I would assume if the whistle gets blown even with this available to challenge it wouldn't be able to be overturned in that case.
I don't watch college football, so I wouldn't know. So lets make up a scenerio. You mean, Player A is deemed down by contact, even though he legitamitely fumbled. The ref believes he was down by contact, so he doesn't blow the whistle, but knows exactly where to mark the ball. Now the other team picks up the ball and gets possession. After all this, the ref announces that they rule the play down by contact, but now the team that was skrewed can challange and rightfully get possession. Do you follow? Is that how it works?
yeah. This is what I thought was the only way they could accomplish it for the years they were debating on making this rule. I like it. It can be confusing, but they'll get the play right. What the NFL has to fix is the 1-minute ref conferences after each penalty.
yes this is a great change now the seahawks could have a chance at the super bowl and not get screwed!!!:steelers:
this is a great decision, everything should be reviewable, they didn't want to make this change because it made the referees think that they have no integrity, but they don't have it anyway, their calls are so bad sometimes, it is good they will change this.