During Sunday’s Falcons-Buccaneers game, it appeared that Tampa safety Antoine Winfield Jr. stripped the ball from the possession of Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts before it broke the plane of the goal line. With no clear camera angle, there was no way to confirm, or to debunk, the ruling on the field.
Whether the call was right or wrong — and one local TV crew shot an angle that makes it look like the ruling on the field was wrong — it shouldn’t be so difficult. Fixed cameras should be in place at the boundaries of every field.
Ben Koo of AwfulAnnouncing.com has taken a close look at the situation. It’s both an NFL issue and a network issue.
The league could install its own goal line and other boundary cameras, in every stadium. It hasn’t. The networks, which use pylon cameras for some NFL games, could use them for all NFL games.
As Koo notes, pylon cameras are used for prime-time games and the primary Fox and CBS game. They’re not used for the secondary games and beyond.
The Falcons-Bucs game didn’t have pylon cameras. The game was handled by the No. 2 broadcast team on Fox.
It’s ultimately about money. And the refusal of the networks to spend the money — coupled with the NFL’s failure to tell them to do it — becomes a game-integrity issue.
We made that point after the opening game of the season. Because NBC blanketed the Ravens-Chiefs game with cameras, eventually an angle emerged that showed, with requisite clear-and-obvious visual evidence, that the toe of Baltimore tight end Isaiah Likely’s shoe landed on the white stripe at the back of the end zone.
If that had happened at the end of a secondary (or worse) CBS or Fox game, the ruling on the field likely would have been upheld. And the Ravens might have won the game.
It’s inexcusable to not have pylon cameras at every game. It’s no different than having replay review available at some games, but not all games. A full crew of officials available at some games but not all games. A functioning and visible scoreboard at some games, but not all games.
The NFL can fix this with one phone call. Actually, with two. Call Fox and then call CBS. Tell them to put in pylon cams.
They’d do it. Because when the NFL says “jump,” the networks don’t say, “How high?” They just jump as high as they can.
