Cowboys’ Stephen Jones happy that replay didn’t overturn many pass interference calls
As a member of the NFL’s Competition Committee, Dallas Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones described himself as “pleased” with how the league’s decision to make pass interference penalties reviewable went in 2019.
The committee will meet again this off-season to see whether it should become a permanent change.
“As far as I was concerned, you certainly saw where it had its challenges,” Jones said from this week’s Senior Bowl. “We worked around it for the most part. I would say I was pleased. The fewer calls reversed, I’m not a big fan of flags on the field unless it’s obvious, and I also was content that not many of those calls were reversed. We didn’t have a lot of flags put on plays.
“We’ll just have to see how everyone took it in, how our coaches took it in, and then in general what our league thinks as a whole should be next steps on that.”
As Jones alluded to, the overwhelming majority of pass interference calls reviewed did not get overturned. After the first nine weeks of the season, for instance, only nine of 63 pass interference reviews resulted in reversals.
Officials had to see “clear and obvious visual evidence” to overturn the on-the-field calls.
The rule was enacted for 2019 only, and it is unclear what its future holds. If the NFL implements it for 2020 and beyond it could be indication that more judgments will become subject to review.
Or the view might be that it may be time to do away with the notion of reviewing judgment calls, a decision some saw as an overreaction to the blown call in the 2018 NFC Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints.
