Report: Competition Committee now supports idea of sky judge

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A year ago, the idea of a sky judge received “no support” from the Competition Committee. Apparently all it took to convince them was the one-year failed experiment that expanded instant replay to include pass interference.

John Kryk of the Toronto Sun reports that the Competition Committee now supports having a sky judge to ensure that certain bad calls or non-calls are fixed in real time.

“The Competition Committee had an abbreviated conference call — obviously, with what’s going on they can’t meet in person as they normally would — but they had a call last week some time,” Dean Blandino, the league’s former head of officiating who now does the same for the XFL, told Kryk, “and they went through all the rules proposals. And there is support for this.”

The Ravens and Chargers jointly proposed two variations of the sky judge concept. The first calls for a “booth umpire” as an eighth member of the officiating crew, and the other proposes the addition of a senior technology advisor to the referee to assist the crew.

The XFL’s sky judge not only ruled on replay reviews but helped on-field officials in the final five minutes of a half.

“As technology continues to improve, and as we can see things as we’re watching on TV that officials cannot see in real time, it’s incumbent upon a league to try to incorporate that into the official decision-making,” Blandino told Kryk.

The NFL reacted to the Rams-Saints NFC Championship debacle from the 2018 season by expanding replay to include interference. It solved nothing, with few reversals even when pass interference was obvious.

The league now is reconsidering how it can fix egregious officiating errors.

Owners typically vote on rules proposals during the league’s annual meeting. But those meetings, scheduled for earlier this week in Palm Beach, Florida, were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Owners now are scheduled to vote on rules changes at their May 19-20 meeting in Marina Del Ray, California, but that meeting also might not happen.