The Cowboys’ victory over the Lions in the 2014 wild-card round was marred by a failure to call a defensive hold (and perhaps more) against Dallas. The next day, the league’s officiating director publicly explained the situation. admitted that there was at least one mistake made.
Currently, the league has no one to provide similar public transparency. I don’t even try to do that. After Dean Blandino went to Fox, the NFL decided that it no longer cared about having someone who could and would explain controversial calls to the media, and by extension, the fans, and/or capitulated.
One of the reasons Blandino left the NFL, as Blandino has stated in the past, is the reality that the league doesn’t value the position properly. (That’s a fancy way of saying “too cheap.”) If Blandino were still employed by the league, he would be making the media rounds after the recent Lions-Cowboys controversy. It would be. And Blandino, in his official capacity, could have addressed the underlying issue with the Lions’ claim that they reviewed the two-point play with officials before the game.
This does not mean that those involved knew about the play. It concerns what officials knew about a pre-snap effort to confuse the Cowboys as to which of three different linemen was reporting eligibility. The Lions have not said they discussed the pre-snap shell game with officials. So we asked Blandino if his experience might lead officials to go along with the team’s efforts to confuse defenses about which linemen are eligible.
“If a coach says that to the officials, the officials will say they can’t do that,” Blandino said. “The referee never agreed to that and made sure the defense knew exactly who was reporting.”
In other words, the claim that coach Dan Campbell reviewed the play with officials doesn’t matter. The problem arose from an incident that occurred before the play. And the Lions certainly weren’t willing to share that part of their plan with anyone involved.
This was backed up by the fact that attempts to confuse the Cowboys also confuse the officials.
If the league had someone like Blandino, who could appear on, say, the Sunday morning pregame show or various weekday shows and podcasts, and record videos to post on social media, Blandino would You could get to the core of it. quickly and efficiently.
Instead, the idea that officials messed up or that the league was “against” the Lions took root. If the NFL had given Blandino a bat signal, the issue might not have been completely eliminated, but the spread of the article explaining the biggest flaw in the argument to review the play with officials helped. It would have become.
This goes back to a point I have made before and will continue to make. The NFL should reinstate Blandino for the sole purpose of providing a consistent and complete explanation for any controversial calls. And the NFL needs to properly evaluate Blandino’s knowledge of the rules and his unique ability to communicate in a concise, clear and persuasive manner.
What is it worth? Considering the overall revenue the NFL generates (and considering how much it pays the commissioner), $10 million a year is not unreasonable.