INDIANAPOLIS — Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel is pushing the NFL to boost personnel at its replay review headquarters, arguing that all games deserve equal treatment when it comes to official reviews.
Speaking at the NFL scouting combine on Wednesday, Vrabel responded to recent statements from league executive Troy Vincent, who acknowledged that several replay review errors occurred last season during early Sunday afternoon games when up to nine contests run simultaneously.
“We need to make sure every game is treated the same — from the prime-time game on Sunday night to the prime-time game on Monday or Thursday or whether it’s one of those one o’clock games that is the lifeblood of our league,” Vrabel stated. As a competition committee member, he emphasized the importance of addressing staffing concerns during the offseason.
“So if it’s something we need to take care of in the offseason, staffing issues that need to be taken care of so that those things are looked at, we need to be really good at replay because there’s going to be mistakes on the field,” Vrabel continued. “We have to get to a system in replay that’s as close to 100% accurate as possible.”
Vincent revealed earlier this week that among 171 plays reviewed through replay or replay assist, only a small number were mishandled. Most of these errors occurred during the 1 p.m. Eastern time slot when multiple games compete for attention.
“There were five after we kind of took a step back and breathed — four of them (were) in the 1 o’clock window,” Vincent explained. “Just volume and you go, ‘Ah, if we had to do that one again, just looking at it.’”
One significant error impacted playoff positioning during a Week 14 matchup. Vincent highlighted a replay decision that reversed an on-field interception call against Pittsburgh’s Aaron Rodgers. This ruling cost Baltimore 46 yards of field position, and the Ravens ultimately fell 27-22 after a potential winning touchdown pass from Lamar Jackson to Isaiah Likely was deemed incomplete upon review.
While that particular call wasn’t among the five mistakes Vincent mentioned, he noted it sparked additional debate about catch definitions. A Baltimore victory in that contest would have secured the AFC North championship for the Ravens instead of the Steelers.
However, adding replay center staff during busy game windows wouldn’t address all disparities compared to marquee matchups, which benefit from significantly more broadcast cameras.
San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch, a former broadcaster and new competition committee member, believes this camera issue also requires attention.
“I do think that’s something we want to strive for as a league,” Lynch said. “I think there’s some uniformity you can get by requiring teams to have fixed cameras and things. I know all those things are being discussed, but that is a reality that the one o’clock games, there’s multiple games going on at the same time. So, the New York headquarters, they’re not going to have all their attention on that game. And then within that, the element that I talked about just not having the amount of cameras and angles. That’s a reality and something that we have to figure out because every game is important in our league, not just the prime-time games.”
