How Much Does the Guy That Holds the Review Camera for the Nfl Make

History of Instant Replay

Upon farther review…

The NFL's instant replay debate has been a hot-push button topic since games were kickoff regularly televised in the belatedly 1940s. Traditionalists, hesitant to interfere with the purity of the game by removing man error, clashed with those eager to embrace technology and all that information technology offered the game.

The NFL has come up to embrace instant replay, merely the process that led to the state-of-the-fine art system the league uses today was non ever seamless. The history of instant replay in professional football is filled with stops and starts; missteps and controversy; and modifications and improvements that continue to this twenty-four hours.

Instant replay's history begins in earnest four decades ago — with a man and a stopwatch.

STOPWATCHES AND VIDEO CAMERAS

The NFL first experimented with instant replay in 1976 when Art McNally, then the director of officiating, wanted to discover out how long a video review would delay a game. Equipped with a stopwatch and video photographic camera, he observed a "Monday Nighttime Football" contest between the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills from a press box inside the stadium.

"If there was whatever question, we took a await at it," McNally said later the experiment. "We asked the photographic camera technicians to requite us dissimilar angles."

He saw a missed phone call on a play involving O.J. Simpson that could have been corrected with replay review. McNally knew so: Replay could assist football.

The NFL tested instant replay during the 1978 Hall of Fame game and six other preseason games that year. It adamant the system was not yet ready for regular-season games. (AP Photograph/Rusty Kennedy)

Ii years afterwards, the league offset tested instant replay on a wider calibration during seven nationally televised preseason games, starting with the 1978 Hall of Fame game betwixt the Philadelphia Eagles and Miami Dolphins.

The organisation'southward functioning was lackluster. The engineering was too plush to install at every stadium, the system needed more cameras than broadcasters used for games at the fourth dimension, and calls remained inconclusive after lengthy reviews. It was clear instant replay was years away from beingness implemented full time.

"We still call up we need a minimum of 12 cameras to go all the angles on every play," and so-assistant supervisor of officials Nick Skorich said after that first game. "Electronically, I don't know if we are avant-garde enough notwithstanding."

Unwilling to implement a costly and ineffective system, the league shelved instant replay until the mid-1980s.

INITIAL INSTANT REPLAY: 1985–1992

Less than a decade later on McNally's experiment, momentum for an instant replay arrangement over again began to build.

The NFL tested a review organization during eight preseason games in 1985 — producing promising results.

Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell delivers a message during a 1982 news conference. (AP Photograph/Mark Duncan)

"The matter we learned in the preseason is that nosotros tin can go the logistical things washed," NFL Director of Administration Joe Rhein said. "That is, information technology's possible to review instant replays [in the printing box] and go the discussion to the referee on the field without a significant loss of time."

The system performed then well that owners held an unprecedented vote to determine if the league would use instant replay in the upcoming playoffs — fifty-fifty though the system had never been used in the regular flavour. The motion failed narrowly, just the close conclusion made it clear the league's leaders were in one case once more warming up to the technology.

"[Owners] didn't want a playoff game decided by a bad call, and so they tried to push it through right there," Art Modell, Cleveland Browns owner, said after the vote. "Only that was a little too quick for some people."

"Some clubs may have voted against it at the time because information technology was adding something for the postseason that was non available during the regular season," NFL spokesman Joe Browne said at the time.

In the proposed 1985 organization, a replay official would have monitored the game feed from an in-stadium berth and initiated all reviews, reversing a call but with "indisputable visual evidence."

Prior to the 1986 season, the owners voted 23-4-1 — 21 votes were needed to pass — to adopt express utilize of instant replay in the upcoming year. The initial process lacked the coach'south challenges and applied science familiar to today's fans. Near reviews were initiated upstairs by the replay official, except when game officials requested a review of their ruling after conferring on the field.

Dallas Cowboys president and general director Tex Schramm stalks the sidelines before Super Bowl XIII, a 35-31 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Jan. 21, 1979. (AP Photo/NFL Photos)

Reviewable plays during instant replay'due south start installation included:

• Plays of possession or touching (fumbles, interceptions, receptions, muffs, or ineligible player touching a forward pass);
• Most plays governed by the sidelines, goal lines, end lines and line of scrimmage (whether a role player is out of bounds, forward or backward passes or breaking the plane of the goal line);
• And easily detectable infractions on replay (too many men on the field).

The decision was only reached subsequently a spirited debate and concessions to appease skeptics. The compromise: The system would be guaranteed for only one year and would have to be voted on again during the following offseason.

"Some feel we are taking the human element out of the game and moving it to a berth in the printing box," said Tex Schramm, who then served equally Dallas Cowboys general manager and NFL Competition Committee chairman.

Replay officials sat in a booth in the stadium with two nine-inch television monitors showing the circulate feed and two videocassette recorders. The ii VCRs were capable of recording and immediately replaying individual plays. Reviews would be a maximum of two minutes, timed from the moment when the umpire signaled timeout.

First employ of instant replay in 1986 Calendar week 1 between the Browns and Bears.

Instant replay'due south first regular season saw an average of i.half dozen reviews per game. Of those plays in question — 374 in all — only 10 percent ended with a reversal of the ruling on the field.

The owners reapproved instant replay for the adjacent flavour. Barely. The measure got exactly the 21 votes needed to pass (21-vii) and was accustomed with a few small-scale tweaks. Only just like the 1986 decision, the system would have to be approved again the following offseason.

Some adjustments were made in an attempt to meliorate the system. To ensure replay officials were experts on the technology, the NFL would now hold a training clinic each offseason. The equipment improved every bit well, admitting slightly, as review monitors were upgraded — from nine inches to 12 inches.

"I'm confident the arrangement will get ameliorate and meliorate," Hall of Fame Miami Dolphins motorcoach Don Shula said after the '87 vote. "Every bit coaches, nosotros realized we tin't meet a game from the sidelines as well equally our coaches can from upstairs in the press box. If you transmit that aforementioned thinking to officials, it helps them too."

BUMPS IN THE Road

The offset system did not lack controversies — or critics.

A miscommunicated instant replay call in October 1986 awarded Oakland Raiders receiver Dokie Williams a touchdown on a play that should accept been ruled an incomplete laissez passer. (AP Photo/NFL Photos)

During a Kansas Urban center Chiefs and Oakland Raiders game in October 1986, Raiders quarterback Marc Wilson threw a laissez passer to Dokie Williams in the corner of the end zone late in the first half. The on-field officials ruled the play a touchdown. But up in the instant replay booth Jack Reader, assistant supervisor of officials, adamant it was incomplete.

"Pass incomplete," Reader told umpire John Keck with the walkie-talkies used for instant replay arrangement communication.

"Pass is complete," Keck heard. Inadvertently, the touchdown stood. The Raiders won past a touchdown — 24-17.

"My buddy, the instant replay guy," Williams jokingly said after the game.

But the miscommunication was no laughing matter to the NFL. The league replaced its walkie-talkies with pagers and radio headsets and it changed the terminology, using clearer terms like "confirmed" and "reversed."

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, long a proponent of instant replay, was eager to improve the system.

"I'm hopeful we tin make some modifications and keep the concept and make information technology work rather than step back out of the electronic age," he said in 1990.

The commissioner'southward hopes were dashed. Afterward a six-season run, instant replay met its demise in 1991 when 17 owners voted against renewing the arrangement. The conventionalities: The organization delayed games likewise much and failed to get enough of the calls right.

Yr	Games	Plays Reviewed	Reversals
1986	224	374 (1.six per game)	38 (10%)
1987	210	490 (ii.three per game)	57 (xi.six%)
1988	224	537 (2.iii per game)	53 (ix.eight%)
1989	224	492 (two.one per game)	65 (13%)
1990	224	504 (2.2 per game)	73 (fourteen.4%)
1991	224	570 (2.5 per game)	90 (15.vii%)
1986–1991	one,330	two,967 (2.ii per game)	376 (12.6%)

"Basically, it was a great theory that didn't piece of work in do," said Norman Braman, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Other owners, similar New Orleans Saints President and NFL Competition Committee Chairman Jim Finks, believed the system should have been improved rather than tossed away.

"I personally feel it is a major step backwards," Finkssaid. "There will exist much more pressure level on the guy on the field."

Ultimately, the organisation's ineffectiveness led to the end of its employ. The league determined that nine of the 90 reviewed calls in 1991 were overturned incorrectly. And only 13 percent of the total plays reviewed from 1986 to 1991 were reversed, fueling critic's arguments that this was not the right system.

REPLAY REVISITED: A CLOSER Wait AT AN IMPROVED System

The fence over instant replay, which never completely ended, picked upward once again in the mid-'90s.

Many of the league'south head coaches at the time did not take firsthand feel with the previous version, so they were curious almost how an improved system would work.

"My sense is that everybody feels that if we're going to have replay, we should look for a concept that works," Tagliabue said in 1996. "Only we want to do it correct."

Referee Bob McElwee reviews a play with an on-field monitor during the 1996 preseason testing of the new system. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)

A new arrangement was approved for testing in 10 preseason games in 1996. Coaches could challenge rulings on the field and replay now covered three categories of plays: out of premises, number of players on the field and scoring plays.

Each coach could claiming three plays per one-half — at the cost of a timeout per review. The league went away from the old version of replay officials in skyboxes and gave referees the authority to review plays on the field inside a booth equipped with monitors. And referees now had but 90 seconds to make their ruling.

Despite the changes, owners voted against implementation for the 1997 regular flavour. The primary hang-up centered on each review costing teams a timeout, even when a challenge was successful.

Heading into the 1999 flavor, the Contest Committee once again adapted its proposal to accost owners' and coaches' concerns. Voters responded, overwhelmingly blessing the new system 28-3. Instant replay review was dorsum in the NFL.

The new system addressed some of the main criticisms of by versions.

• To minimize delays, the league cut the number of challenges from three to two per one-half.
• Coaches, unwilling to merchandise a timeout for any review, would now be charged a timeout but for unsuccessful challenges.
• And and so coaches could focus at the end of each half on which plays to call and not which calls to challenge — a replay banana initiated all reviews inside the final two minutes of each half.

"I guess [the voters] felt this was a compromise," Tampa Bay Buccaneers bus Tony Dungy said, "that it won't tiresome the game downwardly too much while it still lets coaches coach during the last 2 minutes of both halves."

E'er IMPROVING

Beginning in 2017, referees will view replays on wired, hand-held Microsoft Surface tablets.

Since its return, the league has taken steps to ameliorate the process and limit errors as much every bit possible — and technology continues to catch up with the ambitious task of replay review.

Long gone were the VCRs and small monitors. Referees now viewed multiple angles at 1 time using iii affect-screen monitors under the hood. Mike Holmgren, co-chairman of the Competition Commission, said: "We'll get the best applied science available."

Tweaks to replay review continued throughout the decade. In 2004, a reward was added for coaches who were successful on their first two reviews: a 3rd challenge. That aforementioned year, owners extended the replay system for the next 5 seasons — with the hopes of permanently approving the tool in the near future.

"Hopefully, the next time we put it upwardly for a vote we can go far permanent," Baltimore Ravens full general manager and Contest Committee member Ozzie Newsome said after the five-year extension.

Newsome's wish came true just a few years later on. A 2007 decision put an terminate to what had get a yearly contend. With a xxx-2 possessor's vote, instant replay became a permanent fixture in the league.

"It's a long time coming. Instant replay is an accepted office of the game," said Atlanta Falcons general manager and Competition Commission Co-Chairman Rich McKay.

The NFL made the switch to loftier-definition review systems in 2007 — the start of its kind in major American sports. Officials now could review images five times sharper than the previous iteration and freeze images for a closer look. The improved systems were installed in every stadium for $300,000 per team.

"This is a rare opportunity to leverage cut-edge technology to improve the integrity of the game. Our referees volition now be able to see images much more clearly, giving reviews in critical situations the level of scrutiny they truly deserve," said Mike Pereira, NFL's vice president of officiating from 2001 to 2009.

A MODERN Exercise

In the 2014 season, senior officiating staff members within Art McNally GameDay Fundamental (AMGC) in the league's New York headquarters began consulting directly with the referee during reviews. The movement helped ensure that calls are beingness made consistently across the league.

The review process started in New York. As the referee gathered details about the challenge, replay officials in the stadium and in AMGC compiled the best available angles from the broadcast feed. By the time the referee arrived at the booth, the best replays were queued up and ready for review. The alter to a consultation model was aimed at reducing the review's impact on the length of the game.

While the consultation model largely remains in place today, the Contest Committee voted to brand ii boosted changes before the 2017 flavour. Final decisions on all replay reviews would come up from designated senior members of the officiating department in AMGC and referees view all replay video on wired, hand-held Microsoft Surface tablets.

Twelvemonth	Games	Full Plays Reviewed	Avg. Reviews/ Game	Total Plays Reversed	Per centum of plays reversed	Avg. Filibuster/ Review
1999	248	195	0.eight	57	29%	2:54
2000	248	247	1.0	84	34%	iii:05
2001	248	258	1.0	89	34%	3:04
2002	256	294	ane.ane	94	32%	3:01
2003	256	255	one.0	66	26%	3:13
2004	256	283	1.1	88	31%	3:18
2005	256	295	1.2	92	31%	3:16
2006	256	311	1.two	107	34%	two:37
2007	256	327	ane.iii	122	37%	2:38
2008	256	315	1.2	117	37%	2:40
2009	256	328	1.iii	126	38%	ii:39
2010	256	361	1.4	133	37%	2:42
2011	256	390	1.5	172	44%	2:30
2012	256	435	i.vii	170	39%	two:33
2013	256	423	1.7	185	44%	2:25
2014	256	439	1.7	151	34%	2:13
2015	256	415	i.6	176	42%	2:16
2016	256	345	1.iv	149	43%	2:25
2017	256	429	ane.7	196	46%	1:44
2018	256	349	1.4	172	49%	2:01
2019	256	417	1.6	196	47%	2:08
2020	256	364	1.iv	198	54%	two:26
2021	272	279	i.3	158	57%	2:23
1999- 2021	5,880	7,754	one.32	3,098	40%	2:37

Chicago Bears president Ted Phillips said after the successful 1999 vote, "Nosotros don't know if it'southward the perfect system."

The perfect organisation? The NFL may never findthe perfect organisation. But each year, instant replay improves dramatically. Technology has helped the league come a long way — from stopwatches, walkie-talkies and pagers. And applied science will continue to improve the process, allowing the league to make rulings correctly and consistently.

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Source: https://operations.nfl.com/officiating/instant-replay/history-of-instant-replay/

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