REPLAY REVIEW MAKES FOR LESS ACCURATE REFEREEING.

I can say so, for whatever good it does.  "Expect the officials to do their job, and they'll likely do a better job than they do now, when they can make mistakes and have them corrected by Mission Control."

When a sports pundit calls attention, perhaps the league will work the problem.

If officiating wasn’t already on the radar for the NFL’s winter meetings this week, a host of blown calls on Sunday may have driven it into the agenda.

Just one week after an officiating crew drew intense scrutiny for missing multiple egregious pass interference penalties in the matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers, multiple games on Sunday had a rash of flags thrown (or not thrown) that left coaches and players lashing out in frustration. In three instances, calls appeared to significantly impact games that will likely have implications on playoff seeding at the end of the season. That reality again raises the specter that the league continues to fail in its quest for consistent officiating — which is even more troubling now that the NFL has embraced gambling as a driver of new revenue streams.

While missed or improper penalties are often the most spotlighted issues each week of the season, the growing concern and frustration of team front offices and coaching staffs is how the league’s crews are varying in the way they call games. The inconsistency between one crew to the next often leaves teams feeling as if they’re facing two jobs each Sunday: figuring out the team on the other sideline, and then figuring out how a crew is calling a game while it’s still unfolding. When the latter effort falters, it can create some explosive moments from teams in the immediate wake of a game.

Not necessarily including the Kansas City Chiefs going to the old hook-and-trailer, only to have one of the receivers line up offside.

I submit, dear reader, that the problem is the technology.

Even in a league where the officiating is regularly under fire, the run of issues over the past two Sundays is significant, particularly when the miscues impact wins and losses for a multitude of teams positioning themselves for playoff seeding. That alone calls into question why the league’s team owners continue to prioritize cost over more aggressive approaches to resolving the problems through the use of technology, full-time officials, or simply taking a tougher approach to crews or individual officials that have a history of blowing calls.

Continue the after-action reviews, but get rid of the challenges and the reviews, particularly those opportunities for the replay office to butt in in the final two minutes.  What incentive, other than pride, does an official have to get a close call right as the half or the game ends, when there's always the eye in the sky to issue the corrections?