This Play May Have Sealed Fate for the Instant Replay

The NFL playoffs will decide something apart from a champion this year -- the fate of the instant replay.

The owners convene in Hawaii in less than three months to worry about a potential players’ strike and how much money they are going to squeeze out of the networks.

They also vote on whether to keep instant replay or ditch it after a one-year trial. How the instant replay fares in the playoffs could swing the decision.

Advocates, and they are in the majority, entered the playoffs hoping an important call would be correctly upheld or reversed -- thus underlining the importance of keeping the instant replay.

No doubt what they really wanted was something neat and tidy. A question of whether two feet landed in bounds would have been convenient for the replay backers -- something clear to everybody watching television but missed by the guys on the field.

Too bad it hasn’t happened that way.

When the first big moment came in the playoffs, it turned out to be a difficult call made more difficult by those doing the calling. And unless something comes along to alter the thinking of a few people, it may have been the turning point in the debate.

The play came in the Washington Redskin--Ram wild-card game. Ram quarterback Jim Everett tried to hit tight end David Hill in the flat and Hill was covered by Monte Coleman. It took a good lob pass and a nice catch just to create the chance for a 2-yard gain, which is all the play would have amounted to if it ended there.

Of course, it didn’t. And that is where the problem starts. Hill lost the ball as he collapsed under Coleman. The ball came loose, Neal Olkewicz picked it up and ran from the Redskins’ 26 inside the Rams’ 40. But did Hill lose control of the ball before his knee touched down?

Line judge Jack Fette, a 22-year veteran of NFL officiating crews, said he didn’t. Al Jury, a traffic officer in California who is in his ninth year as a side judge, said he did. Joe Gardi said he would have to take a look.

Gardi was the replay official assigned by the NFL to game. He is certainly presumed competent at this new profession or else the league would not have had him working a playoff game. But almost five minutes passed from the time Gardi began deliberating until a decision was made.

A forgiving soul might suggest Gardi should have taken as much time as needed because this decision was critical. The thinking no doubt is that more time should be given to playoff decisions than to one involving Detroit and Tampa Bay.

Perhaps. But if it takes five minutes to make such a decision, it has to mean the call is a difficult one. Five minutes means there is doubt. And the more doubt there is, the more inconclusive the evidence must be.

“If a replay official has indisputable visual evidence available to him that warrants the change, the change will be made,” the NFL guidelines say.

The longer it takes, the more questionable any decision becomes. As time marched on, Washington fans chanted, “Redskins ball, Redskins ball,” and they turned out to be right.

But the decision was messy. And if instant replay expires, the events of last Sunday in Washington may be listed as the cause on the death certificate.