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Pete Carroll Wants The NFL To Eliminate Replays Or ‘Decrease’ How Often It’s Used

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David Hookstead Sports And Entertainment Editor
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Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll wants the NFL to drastically change the replay rules and would be OK with simply eliminating them entirely.

The league just expanded replay this offseason in response to the disaster that was the Saints/Rams ending in the NFC championship game. It doesn’t sound like the Super-Bowl-winning coach is a fan of that move.

Carroll told Peter King the following when discussing replay:

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. 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.

This might come as a bit of a surprise to all the loyal readers, but I actually would tend towards agreeing with Carroll here over expanding replay.

There really does have to be a human element. It’s one of the best parts about sports. Now, we should have replay for very obvious stuff. That makes sense. (RELATED: Russell Wilson Agrees To $140 Million Extension With The Seahawks, Gets $65 Million Signing Bonus)

For example, when Duke got a golden gift from the refs in the 2015 national title game against Wisconsin. We even had replay there and it failed, but that’s the perfect example of needing a call overturned.

But I don’t want a billion things looked at every single week. I just don’t. There’s no need for it. Let the chips fall where they may and then take a look at things which appear to be obviously egregious.

 

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The last thing NFL fans want is for games to last for an extra two hours because the refs feel the need to double check every single call.

That sounds like absolute hell on Earth, and fans everywhere will hate it.

Carroll probably won’t get his wish, but it’s not a bad idea at all.

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