Lions General Manager Martin Mayhew wants coaches to be able to challenge penalties

By Marissa Payne February 20 at 4:35 PM

(Michael Perez/AP)

Football — and specifically NFL football — is one of the most dynamic games in the world. Every year the rules change. Sometimes those alterations are good, sometimes they’re odd, but always they make the game slightly different year-to-year. Next year the game will likely change again, especially if an idea proposed by Detroit Lions General Manager Martin Mayhew goes forward. He’s proposing that coaches be able to challenge penalties. (Coaches may currently challenge plays.)

“If they throw a flag, you can challenge it,” Mayhew said (via ESPN). “It doesn’t solve all the world’s problems, but I think one of the travesties of the game — one of the things that’s going on right now that could be a lot better — is on the Monday after the game, people are talking about the officials and the officiating and the bad calls and this call happened and that call that happened. I think they should be talking about the players on the field and what the players did in the course of the game.”

Not surprisingly, Mayhew had a specific incident in mind — his team’s playoff loss to the Dallas Cowboys during which an official threw a flag for pass interference on Dallas, but then decided to recall it by picking the flag up and, thus, creating a controversy. This left the Lions with fourth down, instead of advancing to a new set that could’ve won them the game.

“I think the emphasis should be on getting calls right. That’s what our emphasis should be on — that the calls are right,” Mayhew said.

He also said that the rule would not apply to plays that weren’t flagged, in that coaches couldn’t demand a replay of a play that was considered clean and demand referees looks for incursions.

“You may have a questionable call during the game, but if it is not called a penalty then you can’t challenge it,” Mayhew said. “You don’t want to have — all of a sudden, a quarterback throws a 70-yard bomb for a touchdown late in a game or something and then you challenge it and say, ‘Well, somebody was out there holding.’ You don’t want that.”

Mayhew’s proposal is set to go in front of the NFL’s competition committee, which will decide whether to recommend adoption of the rule to ownership.

Marissa Payne writes for The Early Lead, a fast-breaking sports blog, where she focuses on what she calls the “cultural anthropological” side of sports, aka “mostly the fun stuff.” She is also an avid WWE fan.