Bill Belichick: Rules for Hail Mary plays “a tough problem”

[Pat Patriot]

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The NFL Competition Committee is looking at possible tweaks to the pass interference replay rule adopted at league meetings in March and one of the issues they’re dealing with is how to handle Hail Mary plays.

Falcons president and Competition Committee chairman Rich McKay said recently that they have been handled as “survival of the fittest” and that “the way that play has been officiated has been different,” which creates issues for taking a second look via a replay review.

Former Bucs and Colts coach Tony Dungy said on PFT Live that he was not under the impression during his days on the sideline that those plays were officiated differently. Current Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was asked how he felt about a play being called differently than every other snap during the game.

“I think they’re trying to solve problems that are difficult problems,” Belichick said at a Wednesday press conference. “If there was an easy solution, it’d be a five minute meeting. But there’s not, so the Competition Committee and the people in the league and the officials and so forth are trying to figure out the best way to do it. We’ll see what they come up with. I think it’s a tough problem.”

Discussions about the pass interference rule involving coaches were set for this week and the Competition Committee is expected to have draft language of any tweaks to address the difficult problems Belichick sees on their table.