Jamie Nye: Upon review, the CFL’s replay centre should be overturned

Duron Carter has ruined the CFL!

In 2013, Carter was the victim of a pass interference penalty in the East Semifinal that didn’t get called.

Tiger-Cat Evan McCollough contacted Carter well ahead of the ball arriving. The CFL admitted the error and coaches, who make up a large portion of the rule committee wanted more power to overturn penalties.

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That off-season the slippery slope that has now become an absolute disgrace for the Canadian Football League began.

Pass interference became a play that could be challenged.

Then offensive pass interference.

Then roughing the passer.

Now, the replay centre (formerly the command centre) can apparently just come in out of nowhere and change anything they want.

Oh, wait, not everything apparently.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders got a first down taken away when the defensive line was aligned offside because the replay centre noticed illegal procedure on Payton Collins

However, a few weeks earlier the command … sorry… replay centre couldn’t call in to say that A.J. Ouellette’s helmet got ripped off his head with a facemask penalty.

We all saw it in real time!

Nope, can’t call that one! But wait, you can call an illegal procedure penalty?

This doesn’t make any sense!

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The CFL has lost it’s way when it comes to the replay centre having carte blanche to come in from above to rule on plays that you pay seven professional referees to be in charge of.

The CFL wanted to uphold the integrity of the game by giving more power to overturn ‘egregious’ errors during the game.

What they’re failing to do is uphold an entertaining product that has flow and allow for human error, like the greatest football powerhouse on the planet, the National Football League.

Remember when the NFL started to allow pass interference to become a reviewable play after an egregious mistake in one of their playoff games.

Now do you remember what happened?

After one year, the NFL realized that even with review there were arguments about if the call their replay centre was making were right or wrong.

So, what did the NFL do after one season?

They scrapped it.

They threw it in the trash because they knew what all the fans of the CFL know, it’s not worth the time because it doesn’t make the product any more entertaining. In fact, it makes it less entertaining.

The flow of the Roughriders and Alouettes game on Saturday night was awful!

3:11 minutes from kickoff to end of game, which was almost a full 30 minutes over what the average game time runs.

Are you telling me the extra delays so the replay centre can change an offside penalty is making the product more entertaining?

Not a chance.

There will always be missed calls in sports. Accept it and allow the fans, who are your bread and butter to enjoy a game without being ticked off that they can overturn this call but they can’t overturn that call.

When the Canadian Football League brought in review for penalties we were all told that we shouldn’t worry about the slippery slope and that the league will be careful not to give too much power to people who aren’t on the field.

Well, they’ve really screwed that up, haven’t they?

I can’t wait to sit down on Sunday and watch a professional football league allow their officials to make mistakes like the humans they are and know those mistakes are not, in fact, ‘ruining the integrity of the game’.

Because they are not.

But, the CFL’s replay centre definitely is.