The NFL is set to use even more technology in its officiating

The NFL also will expand the use of instant replay as an officiating tool in the upcoming season. The league will give replay officials an increased role in assisting the on-field officials with certain objective aspects of penalties for roughing the passer, intentional grounding and late hits out of bounds.

The league and the NFL competition committee are not ready to go as far as some coaches have sought in recent years. The Baltimore Ravens’ John Harbaugh, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Andy Reid and other coaches previously pushed for a “sky judge” system, in which an official stationed in the press box at each game would be empowered to use instant replay to overturn any erroneous call made on the field. The NFL continues to resist that but is inching just a bit closer to it.

“To us, this is where replay-assist can go,” Rich McKay, the chief executive of the Atlanta Falcons and chairman of the competition committee, said at the annual league meeting in March in Orlando. “The concept that Coach Harbaugh and Coach Reid pushed for and we talked about years ago — which was this sky judge idea, right? We’ve always pushed back that the game has to be officiated on the field. It just has to be officiated on the field. There’s too much going on. But their concept and the idea that replay-assist can play a part in getting calls right, we like. And this is just another step in that.”

The sticks-and-chain system for measuring first downs is not about to be retired quite yet. The 10-yard chains are expected to remain on the sidelines at least as a backup system even after the electronic system for measuring first downs goes into regular season use.

The NFL has said that it tested the optical tracking camera technology for line-to-gain rulings last season at games in Miami Gardens, Fla., and East Rutherford, N.J., and at the Super Bowl. That testing is expected to continue at preseason games this summer. If all goes well, according to one of the people with knowledge of the discussions, the electronic system could be utilized in regular season games beginning in September.

Others wonder if it might take until 2025 for the system to be ready for regular season use.

“We have to make sure it works properly in every stadium,” another person familiar with the matter said.

The human element will remain in the first-down process, given that the ball still will be spotted manually by on-field officials at the conclusion of each play. There will be no use of a chip in the football, for instance, to determine electronically whether a runner reached the first-down marker.

But once the ball has been spotted, a measurement will be conducted virtually in the NFL’s officiating center in New York, utilizing optical tracking cameras. The line-to-gain software can precisely calculate the ball’s position on the field and determine whether it reached the point necessary to gain a first down.

The expanded scope of input for the replay official on plays on which a flag is thrown for roughing the passer, intentional grounding or a hit out of bounds was outlined by the competition committee in its report delivered to teams at the March meeting. The report said that the committee recommended after “a thorough examination” that the replay-assist system could be used to help on-field officials on those plays.

“The replay official or Officiating department personnel may not instruct the on-field officials to put a flag down through the replay assist process on any of the above situations; it will only be used when a foul has been called on the field,” the committee said in its report.

NFL leaders and competition committee members always have been wary of making subjective calls reviewable by replay. They made an exception when the owners voted to make pass interference calls and non-calls reviewable for the 2019 season, after the infamous pass interference non-call in the NFC championship game that allowed the Los Angeles Rams rather than the New Orleans Saints to reach the Super Bowl the previous season.

That move resulted in widespread complaints by players, coaches, media members and fans about how the replay-for-interference system functioned, and the owners abandoned the rule after one season. Some league leaders have cited that failure while opposing subsequent proposals to make subjective calls reviewable.

But the NFL gradually has given the replay official more leeway to assist the on-field officials on objective matters. That will be the case with the new directives.

On a play on which a flag is thrown for a late hit out of bounds, the replay-assist system can be used to determine “whether a runner was out of bounds when the officiating crew penalized the defender(s),” the competition committee’s report said. If the replay shows that the runner was “clearly in bounds,” the penalty would be rescinded.

On a play on which a flag is thrown for roughing the passer, replay-assist could be used “when a defender’s contact to the head or neck area of the quarterback was the only criteria used by the official throwing the flag,” the report said. If there is “clear and obvious video evidence that the defender did not make any contact to the head or neck area,” there would be no penalty.

The replay official can also assist on an intentional grounding penalty, advising on-field officials on the objective considerations of whether the quarterback was in or out of the pocket, and whether the quarterback was in imminent jeopardy of being sacked based on the proximity of the defender.

“We put objective rules in there,” McKay said in March. “ … If the defender is not within two yards … it’s not intentional grounding. You’re allowed to drop back and throw the ball wherever you want. You’re just not allowed to throw the ball away when a sack is imminent and you decide to dump it. … So those two aspects, we wanted to bring back into replay-assist.”

The competition committee hopes the new system will make intentional grounding calls, in particular, more accurate and efficient.

“When you look at the calls on the field and then you look at the calls that we didn’t get right, [grounding] was a hard call,” McKay said. “This wasn’t our best call because there’s so many elements to it and it becomes a crew penalty. I mean, literally you’ll always see the referee have to get in there. He’s going to bring a line judge. He’s going to bring a down judge. They’re going to talk about it. In this case, we just like the person in the ear to be able to say, ‘Yes, he was in the pocket,’ or, ‘He wasn’t.’ And then if he needs to help with anything else, he helps them only where we said he could: in the objective findings.”