Getty New England Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick
T
he NFL world was enchanted by one specific game in Week 10 but New England Patriots head coach believes that the league needs to make a rule change.
The action between the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings in Week 10 was the best in the entire league. Minnesota was eventually victorious even though Bills wide receiver Gabriel Davis was awarded a catch that if reviewed likely wouldn’t have counted.
This caught the attention of Belichick who believes the league needs to make a rule change.The head coach wants to expand the ability for coaches to challenge plays, even in the last two minutes of the half.
“I’ve been in favor of that,” Belichick explained during his weekly interview with “The Greg Hill Show” on WEEI. “Now, I’m not in favor of adding more challenges, but challenging the plays. It’s just like in the Buffalo-Minnesota game. In that two-minute situation on the [Davis] catch on the sideline, that play could’ve been reviewed by the officials because it was under two minutes, and either it wasn’t or they missed it or however you want to characterize it.
“To me, that would be an example of a play that the team should have an opportunity to challenge if they want to and if they have a challenge left,” Belichick continued. “Again, there have been other examples of that, plays that have occurred in situations where teams couldn’t challenge because [it was] in two minutes or the rules prohibited those plays from being challenged. I get the forward progress and things like that that you can’t challenge. I’m not talking about that, but I’m saying not having the ability to challenge a play that could impact the outcome of a game — even calls like holding, pass interference, and things like that — I don’t see why those plays can’t be reviewed. But, again, it’s not my decision. So it is what it is.”
What Is the Current Rule?
The Davis catch was not brought up for automatic review. Since it happened inside the two-minute warning, Minnesota could not challenge. Buffalo continued the drive, and eventually tied the game. Though the Vikings ended up winning in overtime, the missed call became a discussion point afterwards.
NFL officiating executive Walt Anderson acknowledged it was a mistake to not review the catch.
“Even though it happens fast and Buffalo hurries to the line of scrimmage for the next play, if the replay official can’t confirm that it was a catch on that long of a completed pass, we should stop play to ensure it was a catch,” Anderson told NFL reporter Lindsay Jones. “It would have been reversed to an incomplete pass because he did not maintain control of the ball after he hit the ground and the ball touched the ground out of bounds.”
Could any Other Rule Changes Happen?
Replay rules aren’t the only thing that could be changed. The NFLPA called upon the league to ban the use of slit film turf fields in the NFL.
NFL Players Association president JC Tretter called for the NFL to take several steps to increase safety measures for players in an open letter, including the banning of slit film turf.
Tretter stated that of the three types of turf used at NFL stadiums—slit film, monofilament and dual fiber—slit film is statistically proven to cause more non-contact injuries, lower extremity injuries and foot and ankle injuries, in addition to causing players to miss more time because of injuries.