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Among today's players, even 300-lb. blobs with guts hanging over their belts can dash to catch the pizza truck. That makes it hard for officials to keep up and get close enough to see the play, but not so close that they get crushed. Still, Red Cashion, who retired in 1996 after 25 years in stripes, believes "officials are better today than they were 25 years ago. There's better technique, more training and more intense recruiting." This year's errors are a blip and not a trend, he contends, and if referees don't look as good as they used to, it's partly because TV misses nothing.
All the more reason to use it.
"The options available are astronomical," says Jerry Gepner of SporTVision Systems, an NFL consultant on broadcast technology. Computer-driven sorting of images is much faster and more accurate than it was in 1991, when 90 calls were overturned on replay. (The league later determined that 12 of those reversals were in error.) A field official today could use a sideline TV monitor to quickly review a play from several camera angles.
It gets better. On Fox TV last week, Tony Verna, the originator of instant replay while with CBS in 1963, showed off his latest creation: a cell phone-size TV with playback capability. A referee could carry it on his belt. Says the NFL's Aiello: "People come to us all the time with ideas like this, and anything that might improve the game is always under consideration."
Anyone suggest seeing-eye dogs?