The Rams ran into that saga Sunday in the waning moments of their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. With 2 minutes, 24 seconds remaining and the Steelers leading by a touchdown, Pittsburgh quarterback Kenny Pickett tried a sneak on fourth-and-one but clearly came up short. Every camera angle showed him stuffed well short of the first-down line.
But when the bodies were peeled off the pile, the ball was generously and inexplicably placed several inches forward, giving the Steelers a first down — and the victory.
After the two-minute warning, they only had to kneel out the clock because the Rams didn’t have any remaining timeouts.
Ah, spent timeouts. That was the reason the Rams couldn’t throw a challenge flag and have officials re-examine that faulty spot. Those are the rules. Had the discrepancy happened within the final two minutes, officials could have made the decision to go to check the replay.
There’s no guarantee the Rams would have tied or won the game had there been a turnover on downs but it would have given Matthew Stafford the ball at the Rams’ 39 with more than two minutes remaining.
As Rams coach Sean McVay pointed out after the 24-17 loss, the game shouldn’t have come down to that spot. His team should have handled its business well before that, including making those two errant field goals and that botched extra point.
But in a larger sense, when there is a blatant mistake happening on the field, the NFL needs to figure how to effectively have someone from the New York headquarters step in and pause the game so the camera angles can be studied.
It goes to credibility. Ninety-nine percent of fans are watching these games from home, or on their phones, or wherever, not sitting in the stadium seeing it with their naked eye. Just about everyone tuned in is getting a good look at those TV angles.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Yes, there’s a strategy concerning when to use timeouts and thereby keep the option to challenge. That’s all good. But those maneuverings should come second when a call that’s obviously wrong, and highly consequential, happens on the field.
An immediate fix might mean automatically reviewing every fourth-down play, just as the NFL reviews every touchdown and turnover. A second look at the Pickett spot likely would have done the trick.
Every team has found itself on the right or wrong end of a blown call.
Think of the Rams in the 2018 NFC championship game, in which Los Angeles cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman committed blatant pass interference against New Orleans receiver Tommylee Lewis. The Rams wound up going to the Super Bowl while the Saints were left to lament the Nola No-Call.
It’s not just fan interest we’re talking about. There’s billions of dollars of bets riding on NFL games every year. And the league doesn’t distance itself from gambling anymore. The upcoming Super Bowl is in … checks notes … Las Vegas.
As for putting GPS chips in footballs to determine precise spots, yes, that’s complex and expensive. It involves a pretty sophisticated system when you consider that it’s also necessary, say, to know when the player’s knee hit the ground and where the ball was at that moment, etc. Different stadium dimensions would require custom systems for all 30 venues.
The NFL likes the human element. The league likes the drama of a chain gang stretching to measure for that first down. Also, there’s a trickle-down effect in football in which the NFL does something and, to a degree, college and high school football follow suit. A prohibitively expensive, custom GPS system might not make it down to the lower levels of the game.
Regardless, the NFL has the ability to get those fourth downs right, and to do so without making wholesale changes to the game. The league cannot risk getting this wrong.