COMMENTARY : Instant Replay Might Return Next Season

Contrary to what you might have heard, there will be instant replay this year in the NFL. It just won’t count.

League owners voted in March to eliminate replay for the 1992 season, but just in case it returns for 1993, the NFL wants to be prepared. So at selected games this season, officials will continue monitoring a system that has been at the root of such bitter controversy since its inception in 1986.

“We’ll be looking for ways to improve the system even though instant replay won’t be enforced during games,” said Jerry Seeman, the NFL’s supervisor of officials. “If the owners want it back next year, we want to be as ready as we possibly can.”

In the meantime, NFL officials are bracing for what is almost sure to be another season of controversy as they do without replay for the first time in seven years. The season kicks off Sunday, so figure the league has, oh, about an hour or so before the first television announcer bemoans an incorrect call that might have been reversed after further review by instant replay.

“I think we’ve got a big problem on our hands,” said New Orleans Saints General Manager Jim Finks, one of the league’s most ardent supporters of replay. “You’ve been living with a system for so many years, and the fans are used to it. When there’s a controversial call that could have been overturned by replay and it’s not, you’re going to run into problems. I think it’s going to be a mess.”

Finks believes the league should have continued working out the bugs in the system former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle convinced owners to adopt. While Finks acknowledges there have been flaws--most notably the long delays that followed many replay reviews--he contends the football public is not ready to accept the old system after becoming so familiar with replay.

“People have been used to it for a number of years now, and it’s hard to change their opinions,” Finks said. “I think most fans are for replay. I just think we have to find a better way to make the system work.”

New York Giants General Manager George Young doesn’t, however. Young, one of the most outspoken critics of replay since its inception, believes the system took away from the human element of the game.

“You’re trying to take a game played by humans, coached by humans and officiated by humans and turn it into a perfect world,” Young said. “It just doesn’t work that way. It’s a game of humans, not machine.”

Young doesn’t seem to care about a potential backlash among fans.

“You can’t have officials looking over their shoulders worrying about calls they make and whether they’re going to look bad because of replay,” Young said. “It takes away from the game in that respect. People have to understand that football is a game played by people. It’s not perfect, and neither are the officials.”

New York Jets coach Bruce Coslet agreed.

“I’m glad it’s gone,” he said. “I didn’t like it from the start. The theory is great, but the application isn’t. It’s hurt the game. It was designed to cure the obvious bad call, but we make mistakes, the players make mistakes, and the refs make mistakes. It’s a human game.”

Despite having six years to smooth out technical glitches, replay was plagued by problems. Last year, for instance, 90 calls were reversed. After further internal review, however, the league conceded nine of those reversals were incorrect.

Frequent delays by replay officials also caused problems. Despite a two-minute limit on replay reviews, many officials exceeded the time limit, often by as much as four or five minutes.

Yet there have been certain moments that seem to make replay worthwhile. For instance, Washington Redskins running back Earnest Byner’s apparent fumble during a 1990 National Football Conference wild-card game against the Philadelphia Eagles was returned for a touchdown by Philadelphia. But a replay showed conclusively that Byner fumbled only making contact with the ground, and the play was reversed.

That play may have saved instant replay last year, because many owners used it to convince others to maintain the system. Some owners might have been convinced about keeping replay in for this year during Super Bowl XXVI, when Redskins receiver Art Monk’s apparent touchdown catch in the first quarter was reversed after replay showed Monk was out of bounds.

But that play alone was not enough. Owners voted 17-11 in favor of replay in March, which was short of the three-quarters majority needed to keep the system for 1992.

It’s too early to tell whether owners will go for replay again next year. But rest assured controversy over the issue will not cease. Announcers, fans--and yes, even some players, coaches and owners--will make sure of that.