Replay Rule May Be Voted Down

As leaders of National Football League teams convene this week at Palm Desert, instant replay officiating is as dead as the controversial grasp-and-control rule, many NFL executives have concluded.

“But both are trivial concerns (compared to) the great issue of labor war,” George Young, general manager of the New York Giants, said the other day. “The players are now getting 70% of the gross, and they want more.”

Noting that the players and owners have been unable to settle on a bargaining agreement for more than a year, Young said: “Our biggest problem is how to make this a profitable business. If we can’t solve that problem, everything else we do will be meaningless.”

As for instant replay, most teams want to continue it, but this is a minority-rules league. Eight of the 28 teams can kill it, and the minority says it has the votes.

Coaches opposing the grasp rule--which leads to cheap quarterback sacks--say it has been superseded by the one-step rule. Passers are sufficiently protected, they say, when a rusher is penalized if he takes more than a step before hitting a quarterback after the pass has been thrown.