The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Best of The Herd: 03/27/2019

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

Colin proclaims that the NFL making rule changes to pass interference will only create more problems, recent rumors about the Lakers interest in Rick was obviously leaked to keep them in the news cycle, trading LeBron James for Zion wouldn't be that tough, and congratulates to the Milwaukee Bucks on replacing the Raptors as the Eastern Conference team to dominate the regular season but get bounced from the playoffs.  Presented by Perky Jerky. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Find your local station for the herd at Fox Sports Radio.com or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd. This is the Best of the Herd with Colin. and Cowher on Fox Sports Radio. Ah, here we go. This is the herd on the Wednesday, live in Los Angeles, Iheart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and FS1. Great to have you here. Everybody from Dean Blandino, Joel Clatt, Nick Wright, Nick Swisher, baseball officially starting tomorrow. Joy Taylor is joining me here on a Wednesday. Joy, how are you? I'm great. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Wasn't it Biggie Smalls, more money, more problems?

Wasn't he the guy that said that? A lot of times we get something and we think it adds to our life and it defines our life and adds precision to our life. And it just creates more problems. So the NFL owners have passed a new one. Pass interference is now reviewable. Oh, that'll make everything right. Right? Wrong.

Now, here's the first thing. Coaches still only have two challenge flags. So don't overreact. I don't like it, but coaches still only have two challenge flags. If I'm a head coach, here's why I don't like it. Now I've got my wide receiver who historically are the biggest egos on the team coming up to me up to sideline constantly. Throw your flag.

Throw your flag. Throw your flag. Throw your flag. Pass interference. Oh, boy. Also, the NFL, I think, believes this is going to solve stuff and it's going to create more arguments. You ever heard of that? that thing called the ring videotape doorbell?

You ever heard of that thing? Ring videotape doorbell. You've seen it on doorbells. It was created to spot burglars. It's a little camera. Is there to spot burglars? And make sure nobody weird is it your door? But the problem is everybody looks weird in that fish eye lens camera.

And we live in a time now where there's delivery people constantly coming to your door. And so instead of creating security, it's created paranoia through America. Because everybody's got 10 delivery people walking up and down their door constantly. And that was created to end it and it started it. Just more problems. The New Orleans Saints pushed this. We're showing you this play for about the 8,000th time. You do realize this is not what most past interference penalties look like.

It is arguable. It is nebulous. It is grabbing, reaching, touching, pulling, which coaches coach. It's like boxing out in basketball. You could argue everything's the pass interference. 95% of the NFL contact quarterback and wide receiver does not look like this. It does not. It's not obvious.

It's arguable. Go watch games throughout the course of a season. They allow clutching and grabbing and pulling. And now you think you've solved everything. No, you haven't. you're going to get those replays and there's going to be more power to the officials. The officials are going to have more power to influence games. The Saints are doing this because they want the officials to have less.

What are you going to do with a Hail Mary at the end of a game? There's pass interference on every Hail Mary. Are you going to go letter to the law and call it a pass interference? There is past interference on every Hail Mary. Pushing, jumping, tugging. I mean, you can go back and look at some of these big plays. You don't think there's pass interference on that? You don't think there's pass interference on that.

You can make an argument on every pass interference call. Remember Tom Brady's Super Bowl threw the ball down the field? And Chris Hogan, look at this. Minutes before that play in the Super Bowl, Chris Hogan got shoved to the ground. But here's the problem. Is that pass interference or illegal contact or defensive holding? Because all three are different calls.

Chris Hogan running downfield got shoved. No call. Oh, it's reviewable. Well, that should be pass interference. Well, it's defensive holding. You're giving officials, you're adding another instrument in the cockpit, so it's more confusing for the pilot. If you think this is going to make things easier,

it's going to make things more confusing. Because there's pass interference on every single Hail Mary, every single late game throw. And on 95% of balls downfield, I can argue that's pass interference. Now, the good news is, coaches still have only two, two challenges. So they can't do it all game. But here's the other thing, is that when you look at football, the catch rule, for years and years, you and I never argued about a catch.

So the NFL changed the catch rule to make it more precise. That's what they're doing here for pass interference. We're going to make it more precise. But it created arguments for the catch rule. You think precision always ends debate. I would argue it creates more debate. It's okay to have a little fuzzy. It's okay to have a human element.

It's okay to argue at the end of games. It's okay. Players, coaches, whiff, sometimes officials do. The NFL thinks it's solving everything here. I don't even know what you do with Hail Mary's. And oh, by the way, every time the NFL, every time, there's a new rule in the NFL. name the team that manipulates it the most.

New England. The tuck rule. I mean, every rule we have, they manipulate it. You don't think New England's going to figure out ways late in games. You out coach them, you out play them, you lead, and they're manipulating it. Like the saints think they're taking away power from refs. You're giving refs more control. You can call stuff pass interference, defensive holding,

illegal contact. Those are all different penalties. I don't love it. I don't think it's the end of the world, but I think it adds more confusion and more debate, not more precision, and Dean Blandino on later to talk about it. Let me shift to this.

I wrote my first book called You Heard Me. And the basic philosophy was there's two stories in sports, the one you hear the audience and the truth. And agents and shoe companies, and the NCAA and big media companies like this one and others, and stars and their handlers and marketers sell you all sorts of stories. But that's not necessarily true. They're trying to gain your trust, gain your money, gain your interest,

gain your followers, gain your support. So here's a story that came out yesterday that's got no truth to it. And I'm not knocking on the reporter because the reporter's excellent. Mark Stein, New York Times. He's great. Rick Carlisle, the Lakers are widely expected to get rid of Luke Walton, and reportedly they are interested in bringing in Dallas Mavericks, Rick Carlisle. Well, I'm sure they are, so the report is accurate.

But that means it was leaked because stories only get out if somebody wants them out. Rick Carlisle's not coming to Los Angeles. Maybe the Clippers, not the Lakers. He's not leaving Luca Donchich and Christopps Porzingis and Mark Cuban. us next year could be scary good. There's no chance this happens. This is the Lakers and or clutch sports and LeBron's people leaking it. Why?

Because it makes the Lakers seem more relevant. And they're not anymore. Do you think this story leaked by coincidence on the day the Clippers clinched the playoff spot last night? Nah, bra. That's not a coincidence. The Clippers clinched a playoff spot. And what do you know?

Rick Carlyle, Lakers. let's remain viable and guys like Colin will talk about it and it'll be on debate shows and your sports centers and it'll be it's not happening. First of all, the two coaches up for the Lakers job, this is not an elite job right now. It's not. It's not an elite job. Our Jason Kidd who got fired in Milwaukee and they got way better than minute he left, seven seed to one seed.

And the other job he's up for Lakers is Cal, the Cal Bears, which is a bad basketball job, forgetting college basketball in the world. It's just not a good Pact 12 basketball job. And the second guy up for its Tailu, he got fired too. And I think he's a pretty good coach, but it's not like teams are lining up for him either, especially the good ones.

This story leaks. Rick Carlisle, big name, respected coach, the night the Clippers make clinch a playoff spot. That is not a coincidence. Let's steal some headlines, let's get talked about, and frankly, they did this morning on this show. But Paul George passed on the Lakers, and top coaches are not interested in this job. And the Lakers absolutely want to remain viable.

And I said this last week. The Lakers have become Mike Tyson later in his career. They no longer work on their jab. They're just big haymakers, knockout swings, a lot of whiffs, not very efficient, looking for the big knockout. But they're sloppy. They're not doing their homework. They just gave away Zubots, their great young center. The Lakers have three or four things going against them.

They're arguably the second worst shooting team in the NBA to Phoenix. It's now a Shooter's League. LeBron will be in his 17th year coming off his first real injury. Worse, by the way, than we predicted, according to a report by Joy yesterday on the show. Their top two young players, Lonzo Ball, and Brandon Ingram, are now injury prone, and that is not debatable. And oh, by the way, the front office is not considered elite, according to my sources around the NBA. Those are not fixable issues. LeBron's not getting younger.

Lonzo's not going to become non-injury prone. The front office isn't suddenly going to hire R.C. Buford from the Spurs and get great or Danny Ains from the Celtics. And oh, by the way, where are you going to find shooters? This story is leaked to make the Lakers seem viable. Now, they may land Anthony Davis, and that will make them more interesting. But when I wrote that first book, the whole point of it was to tell you there's two stories you're fed. The truth and the one people feed you. This is clearly leaking a story to make sure that the team that is no longer considered a really viable spot for top free agents.

Kauai's story came out yesterday. Not interested again. Kevin Durant's not coming here. Clay Thompson's not coming here. Kyrie Irving, 5% chance, 95 not coming here. Anthony Davis, potentially, perhaps probably, if you can trade for him with limited assets. Two stories. One, you're being fed and the truth.

And the truth here is Rick Carlisle. No way in the world would leave the Dallas Mavericks in their future. and Mark Cuban for what currently is happening with the Lakers. Alarm! The Willies! Hebi-Geebies! Panic! There are dozens of words for fear, but just one for an exceptional home security company to stop fear at your front door. Simply say, it's the home security that makes me fear less. Award-winning 24-7 protection. Protects your home, do it all. Blizzards, blackouts, burglars. They've won awards from all the tech experts that count. The Verge calls it the best home security. It's one, reader's choice from PCMag.

It's a two-time winner of CNET's editor's choice. And a wirecutter top pick. SimplySafe, no contract, no hidden fees, no gotchas. Keep the prices fair and honest. Thanks to Simply Safe, Fear Now has no place in a place like home. Try it. Free shipping and free returns too. Plus a 60-day risk-free trial too. Order now. SimplySafe.com slash her. Be sure to go there. They know who sent you. We did. Simplysafe.com slash H-E-R-D. Welcome back. You know, Nick Wright and I are buddies, call us first things first. We have one big difference. I've always seen sports mostly from a general manager slash business perspective.

I think, you know, Nick sees it. He's got more of an emotional perspective, which can be a huge benefit. So when I said, you know, I look at LeBron as a declining asset in the history of the league, Probably got two more great years. Zion in the history of the league. Look at the numbers. Probably has 13 next great years. And is very cheap and very coachable and doesn't come with a lot of baggage, optimistic young. So let's go over you the Coward Global Satellite Network to Nick Wright.

All right. Nick passed out. Regained consciousness. What do you make of my assertion, which I don't think is any wild, crazy, nutty thing to say. If you look at the history of the NBA, what do you make of my assertion that today it would be tough? You'd get yelled at, but I'd make the deal. Okay, your assertion is fine. You want to discuss what's more valuable. LeBron for the next three to five years or Zion for the next 13 to 15.

I'll listen to that. But my beef with you isn't that you come from some erudite general manager perspective and I am some fanatic, emotional, heart on my sleeve fan. My issue with you is your cable news-esque chicanery you tried to pull on your audience. Show that graphic again, please. Okay. We have what we call here a Y-axis problem. This graphic says that Zion Williamson today is what LeBron James was as a player in year 13, in year 12.

For this graphic to be correct, yes, Zion could be on the uptick, but he needs to be, is he going to be as good as LeBron as a rookie, a little bit worse, a little bit better? He needs to be way down at the bottom. You understand why your stock graphic doesn't quite work? Because take where Zion is. Zion's on one Y-axis. LeBron's on a different one. And then you just layered them against each other.

Like a climate change denier. Like, what are you doing here, coward? This is an absurdity. You know better than this. This is just hijinks. It's just total hijinks. But you would acknowledge, though, that a couple of things. LeBron has left Cleveland twice.

It wouldn't be like trading magic. LeBron's made himself easier to trade because he hasn't been loyal to even his hometown, one, and two, Zion is absolutely ridiculously. Bryce Harper, LeBron, Serena. You can't deny he is going to be a remarkable transcendent figure in this league. Listen, in my, in the post, let's just go from LeBron's rookie year to now. I have thought there were three can't miss, have to go number one, going to be Hall of Famer, guys, that barring injury I'd bet my life on. Anthony Davis,

Luca Donchich, Zion Williamson. Now, Luca didn't even go number one, but that's because the league is nuts, but I'm documented on that. Zion is a can't miss guy. He walks into the league as what Blake Griffin walked in as, but a better defender and Blake average 23 and 12. Zion is can't miss. Zion, I did NBA trade assets on our show a month ago. I had Zion as the fourth best trade asset in all of basketball. Thank you.

LeBron, I think, was fifth. So I understand the point. I think the point that is 15 years of Zion better than three or four more years of LeBron is a fair one. I just, I love math too much to let that graph stand unopposed. Okay. You know what? Our pen, the blue ink, got a little crazy. It leaked up.

Yeah. Okay. Let's go to Rick Carlyle, rumor to the Lakers. I don't think it's a coincidence. It leaked on the night the Clippers clenched. They want to seem viable and interesting. Carlisle is not leaving Luca Donchage. He is not leaving Christop Porzinger or Mark Cuban.

I don't buy this for a second. What do you make of the rumors? Listen, it would be a coup by the Lakers. It would be great. Rick Carlisle is one of the five best coaches in basketball, and he would immediately garner LeBron's respect, and that is obviously very important. Now, right now, to me, it looks like it's,

going to be Ty Lou. I think Tyloo would be a good choice. I think Mark Jackson would be a fine choice. I think Jason Kidd would be a disastrous choice, but I don't know who the other candidates are because it can't be a first time head coach. It can't be an assistant. But whomever it is is going to have a fair shot at this thing. We've talked to this before. There are two coaches in LeBron's tenure that three, two coaches have been fired on his watch. Let's call Luke a third. The first one was Paul Silas when LeBron was 20 years old, midway through year two. Nobody blamed that on LeBron. Another coach was not fired on his watch until David Blatt. David Blatt was an absolute dufus who will never coach in the NBA again, and they went on to win a championship that year.

And then Luke, Luke, Luke, got a fair shot. Luke, we will find out whether or not Luke where he stands in the NBA circles by whether or not he gets an NBA job next as a head coach. I don't think he will. So I don't blame LeBron for Luke not working, but the next coach has to work, which is why it can't be, they can't go the Nick Nurse option, even though that's working in Toronto. It's got to be someone that you know can coach at a championship level. I want to shift to this, the pass interference rule. We do this a lot where we think something is going to create clarity, and then we change the catch rule, and it creates more confusion. I look at the new pass interference rules.

Now the good news, coaches still only have two challenges. So you can only do so much of this. But I think like the catch rule, the league is looking for more precision and it's going to create more fuzz, more nebulous arguments. Because I think, Nick, my last, I was telling the staff this morning, most past interference calls don't look like the Rams Saints call. It's jockeying for position down a sideline. It's a Hail Mary bumping and grinding.

I don't like this change engineered by the saint's owners. What say you? Colin, if you're driving on the 405 and you go under an overpass and a giant boulder lands on the hood of your car. It hadn't happened. Your entire life will never happen again. You don't buy boulder insurance. You say, man, that's terrible luck.

You don't change a system for an anomalous event. This call was the worst call in a big game. in five years. It won't happen again anytime soon. And to change the system because of it is absurd and mark it down. Fans will hate it. By week five, it will be the biggest complaint point in the NFL because the play that they used as an example as here's past interference that was not called that would have been called with a challenge was a great defensive play in the Super Bowl. The Brandon Cook's breakup right before the Stefan Gilmore game ceiling interception. The NFL said, no, if you challenge that, it would turn into defensive fast interference.

What you're going to have is teams get off the field on third and long, and then all of a sudden, you challenge a non-called DPI. It makes offense easier once again. It does not allow referees to set a tone on what will be and won't be called. And oh yeah, by the way, what the hell are they going to do about Hail Marys? Because once you go to replay, it's got to be this is what the letter of the law is. That is the problem with replay in all sports

except for tennis, where they do that really cool computer-generated image and we don't know if it's real, but it's instant and we trust it, is you go from the spirit of the law the way a game has always been officiated to the letter of the law. Oh, why not add instant replay to see

if a guy beats a tag in baseball? Sounds great. What could be wrong with it? Oh, it turns out after he does beat the tag, for a tenth of a second, he pops off the bag for 140 years in baseball. He's safe. Now he's out. Welcome to that world in the NFL related to offensive and defensive past interference. I hate this change. It's an overreaction to an anomalous event.

By the way, Big Ben, I have said, I think he's passive aggressive, like Aaron Rogers. there are leadership qualities. He does not possess. I like my guys to be Russell Wilson. Tom Brady Breeze, luck, boring. Stay out of controversies. If you have to bark at a coach, do quickly, briefly, move on.

Where do you land? Two minutes left. Big Ben. Looks like the Steelers are backing him 100%. Mike Tomlin yesterday. Back in him 100%. What do you make of it? What I think is Big Ben on Sundays is awesome.

and Mondays through Saturdays is a pain in the neck and a bad teammate. I don't even think he's passive aggressive. He's aggressive aggressive. He holds that his own weekly press conference essentially on the radio, knowing it's right before Mike Tomlin's, knowing that Tomlin's going to have to answer for what Big Ben says with no prep time for it, and just throwing, hey, you know that pick eye through that cost us the game that the D tackle intercepted? That was my receiver's fault, actually.

I don't know why we don't run more quarterback sneaks. I'd love to, but my offensive coordinator is a moron. Like, this is, he's not a good teammate. He's not a good leader. He is an amazing football player, and he plays hurt, which generates tremendous respect from his teammates. But listen, there's no other quarterback in the league that acts like him on or off the field, and you just got to deal with it. But in the Steelers version of Game of Thrones, like he has held the Iron Throne and any competitors have been dispatched.

It is all Ben Rathlisberger's team moving forward if it wasn't already. For the record, Josh Rose and I, Joe and I were talking about this, I said, if I came to FS1 and within a year they're like, listen, we like you, but Bob Costas is available, and they didn't kill the rumors. And by the way, they kept me, I don't think I'd be all in. I think at some level there would be some resentment by me or Josh Rosen. Do you think he can stay with Arizona with all these rumors? Well, I think your analogy is really interesting because a year after you came to FS1, I mean, maybe they were after Kossis. They couldn't afford him.

They brought me over instead, and you felt the heat, so you shipped my butt to New York. So I would imagine that this is a somewhat similar situation. The only way the Giants can salvage their offseason is Haskins or Rosen. Whatever it takes, get one of the two. Otherwise, the next rule change the Giants are going to propose is to abolish the forward pass. Nick Wright, first things first. Great seeing you, buddy.

You too, man. Miss you guys. Great job, Joy. Great job, Colin. Talk to you guys later. Makes me laugh. One more herd? The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart Radio app.

Search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. I would like to congratulate the Milwaukee Box. We don't talk about them on the show much. But last night, they dominated Houston, number one seat in the east. They have the MVP in their team, and they're going to win 60 games. And last night, they played Houston a very good team, and they just destroyed them. I mean, pretty good game at half. And then third quarter, I watched this, blew them out, and they were dominant.

And I'd like to congratulate, officially congratulate Milwaukee for also replacing the Toronto Raptors as the really good NBA team that takes the NBA regular season. way more seriously than everybody else. And I'd like to remind Milwaukee, the last 10 years, the number one seat in the east, just two of 10 times, has made the finals. A LeBron team and a LeBron team. The rest never made it. Congratulations, Milwaukee, on replacing the Toronto Raptors

on the team that takes the regular season really, really seriously. The Raptors replaced Derek Rose and the Bulls, 2011, 2012. There was the Atlanta Hawks, 2015, the Pacers 2014, the Young Celtics in like 2016. Congratulations. The smart teams, Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, Boston Celtics, rest their starters, long season. There's always a team in the east, and they're all the same. They have a young star or two. They have mostly a young roster.

They've never won anything. And they want desperately that number one seed. And their fans go crazy. And their fans send me hate tweets. And you don't respect us. It's always an Eastern team. They've never done anything in the playoffs. They've got one or two superstar players.

They have a very young nucleus. And they will not end up in the finals. They won't. Houston might, and they got drubbed last night because Houston has a veteran coach and veteran stars, and they smartly rest their players. Pedal to the medal in the NBA regular season, Greg Popovich and the Spurs were the first team to figure this out.

There's no benefit. If you can't win road games, then you're not good enough to be in the finals anyway. LeBron figured this out. The Warriors have figured it out. The Spurs figured it out. By the way, Doc Rivers, the big three in Boston, figured it out. Showtime Lakers figured it out.

Shack and Kobe figured it out. There's always, and it's seemingly always an Eastern Conference team, and they've got a great player, and they've got a young nucleus, and they've never won anything. Go look at NBA history. You don't go from not winning a playoff series to being NBA champs. It doesn't work that way. It's baby steps.

In the last 10 years, only two of the 10, number one seeds in the East have gotten to the finals, and there are two LeBron teams. One in Cleveland, one in Miami. For the record, I'm actually impressed with Houston. There's all this MVP talk.

I'd give it to Yonnas. I think he's a good kid. I think he's a good player. He's going to win a few of these. It's nothing against James Harden. James Harden's great. But there's a really clear, once again, the best player on a team is not the most valuable.

The most valuable player on the Rockets is Chris Paul. The best player is James Harden. With James Harden and without Chris Paul, the rockets are 33 and 18. But without Chris Paul, they only win 58% of their games. So they're a better team statistically when Chris Paul plays. When Chris doesn't, and they are very hardened-centric, they're not the same team. Last year, at some point last year, they were like 14 and 0 when they had played together. By the way, they led the Warriors last year.

Chris Paul got hurt series over. I think Steph Curry is the most valuable warrior. He's not as good as Durant. I think Chris Paul, who plays on both ends, really well, is more valuable than James Hardin. Hardin's a way better player. So I would give the MVP, if I don't think you're the most valuable player on your team,

Kevin Durant Warriors, James Hardin, Houston. I can't give you the MVP to. league. So to me, Janice is, nothing against Chris Middleton of Milwaukee, but Janus is the best player and the most valuable player on this team. So there you go. And congrats. Last several years,

the baby dinosaurs in Canada, the Raptors have been the team that takes the regular season really seriously and their fans, they're Canadian, so they don't yell to anybody. But if they, you know, were Americans, they'd scream at us that you're a jerk and you don't know what you're talking about. But Milwaukee has replaced Toronto as the team that takes the regular season really,

really seriously. And it just doesn't equate to NBA finals and NBA championships. It just doesn't. What's going on, everybody? John Middlough, three-and-out podcast, brought to you by the Colin Coward Podcast Network. You like Colin's show. You will like mine. I talk football, football, and then a little more football. This week, owners' meetings, coaches pictures. You know we're talking about new rule changes. I think the fourth and 15 slash onside kick rule. is fascinating and Gromk retires. Again, John Middilkoff, three-and-out podcast.

Go subscribe. Dean Blandino, former NFL senior vice president of officiating, just my opinion, but since you left, the league's not as well officiated. And I've said that when you're not here, not just when you're here. All right, here's something that bothers me. You know, we think of the NFL as this brilliantly run organization, but I do feel sometimes that they're bowing to pressure. Gail Benson, Saints, popular franchise, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, change the rule.

And yesterday, my takeaway was, what was the hurry, Dean, to change the pass interference rule? Yeah, I think what the NFL did yesterday is they won the press conference, right? They won the press conference, but as we all know, that's not, that's only part of it. Now, similar to last year when they put the helmet rule in, last minute, now we've got to figure out all the unintended consequences and vet out where normally the competition committee has months to go through this, think about it. Obviously, the play happened in the NFC championship game. No one wants to see that type of mistake affect a game, but is replay truly the fix here? Or is it officiating on the field and making sure they have good direction? They're coached up. They know what pass interference

is and they're going to make the call when it has to be made. I would, I always, one of the things I've repeated a couple of times today, I don't want my having to learn a new cockpit every year. I want fewer rules, rare changes. NFL's always been very nimble in terms of changing. Could I make the argument last three years since you left? There's just too many changes. I think it's been, even when I was there,

and we really pushed back on this, you don't want to change 10, 15 rules changes a year. The game is in good shape. Now you add layers upon layers upon layers. Officiating is hard enough. Oh, God. Games never been faster. It's never been faster.

There's no huddles anymore. There's no, there's more plays, there's more scoring, there's more scrutiny. And now we're going to add, okay, you've got to learn 10 new rules every year. We're going to throw it at you at the last minute, kickoff formations, helmet rule, all of these things. And it's made officiating almost impossible. And by the way, the technology now fans can see every mistake because literally there's 80 cameras. Exactly. You have the convergence of more cameras, better slow-mo, more rules.

more rules, harder to officiate, game is faster. You know, again, I'll go back to the plane analogy. It would be like planes are harder to fly, there's more in the sky, and we're changing the cockpit, and pilots are getting older and slower. It's like at some point that's when you have crashes. Okay, let's go to the pass interference. Here's what I worry about, because coaches still only have two challenges. So you can't do it all game.

Pass interference is dicey because I showed a clip in the Super Bowl earlier. where Chris Hogan's running down the field and he gets jammed against the Eagles. Now that's not past interference because Brady still had the ball. Exactly. But nothing was called on that. Do you see the catch rule was created

to create precision and it created more fuzz? Correct. My question is, what do you do with the Hail Mary? If you're going to judge it by letter of the law, they're all past interference. That's the key because you have the letter of the law and then you have how the practical guidelines.

how it's officiated, right? The bang, bang, bang play, because the official can see it in real time, only sees it once. The bang, bang play where it all occurs around the same time, that's not past interference. Well, now, are we going to overanalyze it to the point where the defender got there a split second, a frame early? That is now past interference, and guess what? That's a 40-yard foul. Are we going to go to that degree? The end of the game, the Hail Mary, you always tell officials, it has to be a complete just, egregious. Egregious, flagrant. So here's the funny thing. Pass interference is the largest penalty in American sports. It can be a 60-yard penalty. So it should be, in my opinion, officiated with great discretion. Okay, so I am all for allowing a ton of pushing because it's just like anything else. If you go five miles over the speed limit, you shouldn't end up in jail.

He shouldn't be that punitive. It's the most punitive call in American sports, right? So it could be a 60-yard penalty. What would you do in a Hail Mary? What, what, and once, by the way, you call one Hail Mary PI. Now you've set a standard. And now, well, wait a minute, you called that one at the end of that game. And that's my concern.

I think you have to have a standard look. It has to be clear and obvious. Even the non-Hail Mary, it has to be clear and obvious. The thing is, look, the play in the NFC championship game was obvious. The majority of pass interference calls are not that obvious. Totally subjective. They're not that obvious. And when you go to slow-mo, Dean.

No question. You grabbing me, like, Joy and I, next to each other, she hits my arm. But in slow-mo, when you see my arm banned, it's like, oh, that's an obvious. You've got to rule on, you've got to rule on the contact, when it occurred, did it occur, did it restrict the receiver's ability to make a play on the ball? And we're just talking defensive pass-affairants. Now offensive pass-interference

with all the hand-fighting that takes place? Did it, was it a push-off? Did the defender initiate the contact? Did the receiver? Now you're asking a replay official inside two minutes to initiate those reviews on those types of plays. Can I ask you, have you heard from any officials this morning? You know, I haven't yet. I'm starting, I'll start to get those text messages. I think the on-field officials, it won't change what they do.

I think the replay officials, you have 17 crews, 17 replay officials that are sitting there now, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're in the rulebook right now, boning up on their pass interference rules. Is there a rule you would like to see implemented or altered? because you're for fewer and less changes. Is there one you would... Yeah, you know, for me, I'm all about making it simpler. And I like, I don't like a lot of conferences on the field.

I don't like a lot of stoppages in the game. I would look at, let's make replay simpler and let's take away some of the reviewable categories. Because look, replay was created to fix the egregious mistake. And it has morphed into, we are looking at plays... For perfection. Exactly. And it's an impossible standard.

Here's the other thing that one thing you cannot deny, and I think in football more than any other, momentum is a real thing in sports. Replays kill momentum. No question. It gives defensive players in football time to rest. You go watch an NBA game, and a player comes down the lane,

dunks on somebody else. The crowd goes crazy. You go to a three-minute replay? You've stolen. Fans should matter. Rest should not be. available because of technology. We always worked with our replay officials

inside two minutes that you're not there to fix every potential mistake because you can give a team a time out. You can create an advantage, momentum, all of those things. So a four or five yard pass, okay, maybe it's incorrect. Leave it alone. But you do worry about becoming overly technical and now

are we going to have four, five, six stoppages? I hope not. I don't think there will be, but the potential's there on pass interference plays inside two minutes. Okay, I go back to this. This is my crazy rule. rule is that I just have one rule. Two minutes left in a game. You can review anything if it's egregious, not the coaches.

The league can, this probably happen, you know, every once, twice a week. The league can say, Ram Saints, missed it, review it. Yeah. Not the coaches. You can't throw a penalty flag. It's called the umbrella rule last two minutes, and it would be a stoppage of play. Guy upstairs goes, bang, bang, bang, we get an egregious. Is that crazy?

Yeah, no, it's not crazy. And look, we're doing some things, you know, in the, the alliance of, American football, they have a sky judge. That is exactly what the sky judge is there to do. In the egregious mistake at the end of the game Saints Rams, or it's a player's safety, where the safety

of the player is concerned, they can buzz down, communicate with the crew, wirelessly, in their ear, hey, that's a flag. Put it down. And I think that's reasonable. I just feel like we have to figure out the way to do that seamlessly and not interrupt the game

unnecessarily. NFL senior VP of officiating. Dean Blandino, good to see you, buddy. You too. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHeart Radio app. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened.

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