This Review Gives It a Thumbs Down

You know what has ruined pro football? Replay. Vinny Testaverde runs a quarterback sneak on fourth and goal from the five to end the game last week and the National Guard should have been put on alert.

“He’s in. . . . No he’s not. . . . What kind of an idiot calls a quarterback draw with Vinny Testaverde playing quarterback. . . . Only Parcells has the guts to do that. . . . “

The arguments should have gone on for days--the true essence of sports--but instead we got 25 replay shots of Vinny cradling the football half a yard shy of the goal line and some moke raising his hands, signaling a touchdown. No mystery. The Seahawks lose, the Jets win, the officials stink, there’s renewed boring talk about instant replay, it dies out, life goes on.

No talk about Bill Parcells’ call. No one timing Testaverde’s five-yard run. No mystery over whether he made it in or not.

The biggest carry-over in the NFL now each week is how many times you catch the officials in a goof.

What if there had been no replay of any sort? What if it had stayed like Friday night high school football? There’s a pileup, the officials dig through the scrum, anticipation mounts and an official raises his hands high in the air, signaling a touchdown.

Parcells gets carried off the field. The Seahawks throw their helmets. The official gets a security escort. The sportswriters want to know why Seattle wasn’t prepared for the quarterback draw. Testaverde says no one gives him credit for being as fast as he is. Jet fans are slapping each other on the back in amazement and Seahawk fans go to their graves insisting Testaverde never made it into the end zone.

Some even go to their graves sooner than later, crossing paths with Jet fans on the way out of the stadium. A good time is had by all survivors.

To err is human, and to be an NFL official. Shoot, it’s your last hope if you’re a Raider or Bear fan. Maybe the refs will blow the call and your guys will win. Take that away, and it’s Donald Hollas and Moses Moreno, and, land sakes, you’re going to get your butts kicked.

Why this insistence in the NFL on being perfect? How long before every official--in NASCAR fashion--has a camera slapped to his shoulder to record the play as it’s run?

Why make any call? Why not run the play, and then go to the videotape? Tie it into the scoreboard--let the anticipation grow, run a few advertisements-- then let the final verdict flash: incomplete pass.

During the baseball playoffs and World Series, you had umpires calling strikes on balls more than six inches wide of the strike zone, and no was calling for technical gizmos to change all that. Instead you had announcers saying it was up to the opposition to make adjustments.

Why not the same in football? You get Phil Luckett’s crew and he’ll give you a touchdown, as long as you get within a yard or so of the end zone. Imagine what a confidence boost that would be for the Rams.

“Nobody’s perfect,” said expert Bill Bidwill, owner of the Arizona Cardinals. “Players, coaches, officials, they all make mistakes.”

Especially when employed by the Cardinals.

“But players don’t get a second chance if they drop a pass,” Bidwill added. “Coaches don’t get a second chance to change a call on third and short unless there’s a penalty. Play the game the way other sports do. . . . The game should be left on the field.”

Impossible.

Check yourself: You can’t watch football anymore without waiting for the replay. People pay good money to go sit in the stands and as soon as the play has been run they crank their neck to the side to see the same play they just watched in person run again on the scoreboard. Amazing those stadiums without replay capabilities aren’t empty every week.

Let’s face it: Old, out-of-shape, blind officials add flavor to the game. The only thing instant replay does, for the most part, is remind us how old, out of shape and how blind they really are, because when they call pass interference on Buffalo in the end zone on Drew Bledsoe’s Hail Mary pass at the end of the game, giving New England another chance to win it, instant-replay rules can’t change that.

When they don’t call pass interference on Dallas cornerback Kevin Smith for mugging Arizona wide receiver Rob Moore in the end zone before he has the chance to catch a game-tying touchdown pass on the final play, instant replay does not apply.

Eliminate the replays and there’s still room to argue: No two people see the same accident the same way. You might even come to blows, like true-blue Jet fans.

“I just think when replay is discussed, everybody thinks it’s this great panacea that’s going to solve all the problems of the world, and it’s not,” said Rich McKay, Tampa Bay general manager and co-chair of the NFL’s competition committee. “Of all the controversial calls we’ve seen, in essence it wouldn’t apply but to maybe one or two of them. It’s not going to correct a coin flip. It’s certainly not going to correct the pass interference in the Buffalo game. It’s going to have nothing to do with that.”

That makes replay more a problem than an aid. The officials might even look pretty good without replay.

It’s true, instant replay might have taken note that the Ravens had 13 players on the field when Oakland missed a last-second field goal earlier this season, but this is known as justice.

“I’d be tempted to jump from the tallest building if the season ended on one of those [bad] calls,” said Denver tight end Shannon Sharpe, and imagine the replay potential on that.

Forget about instant replay, how the officials are graded, taskmaster Jerry Seeman, and Dennis Erickson losing his job as Seahawk coach because the call in the Jet game went against him. Erickson was a goner as soon as Warren Moon faded and he had to put his fate in Jon Kitna’s hands. This year is no different from any other year.

The last few weeks might have attracted more attention, but beyond Denver’s perfect ride, what else is there is to be interested in this year?

“I don’t think it’s an epidemic, that all of a sudden we’ve declined immensely,” Indianapolis Colt owner Jim Irsay said. “I have a strong feeling that my great- grandson or great-granddaughter could be standing here and be asked the same questions in 2071, because I don’t think we’re ever going to totally cure it. You just try to get it as good as it can be.”

Here’s the deal: There are all kind of officials. You’ve got your John Elways and Brett Favres, your Drew Bledsoes and Troy Aikmans. And then you’ve got your Trent Dilfers and Craig Whelihans.

When your best officials are calling the plays, the game is a wonderful thing. But when you’ve got a Dilfer determining who wins and who loses, there’s no telling where that flag’s going to fly.