Sometimes it seems like replay has taken over the sports world.
Every major sporting event seems destined to have a major play go to a video review that ends up greatly altering the end result. And sometimes, video review makes things even more controversial — see this year’s Kentucky Derby, or the NCAA Men’s basketball championship between Texas Tech and Virginia.
And Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll thinks the NFL would benefit from killing video review, or at least significantly decreasing its use.
“Get rid of — or at least decrease the use of — instant replay. I get all the reasons why we have instant replay, and technology has opened up a new world for us to get to this point,” Carroll said in Peter King’s Football Morning In America column. “But I miss the human element of trusting the officials to make the calls in the moment and then the rest of us having to live with what they called. It was both fun and frustrating, but I really liked the game better when the officials were just as much a part of the game as the players.”
Now, video review is not going anywhere in sports. In fact, it’s likely to see an increase in usage, if anything. It’s also worth noting that Carroll has won 38 of the 78 challenges he’s issued over his 13-year NFL career, 10 of which came in the replay era.
But Carroll has a point. Not only has the human element been removed from many monumental sports moments, but sometimes review hurts more than it helps.
