When I first saw Miami coach Nick Saban attempt to toss the red challenge flag after TV replays appeared to show Pittsburgh tight end Heath Miller was out-of-bounds prior to scoring the game-winning touchdown, I thought he was concerned with style points. He looked tentative and unsure before tossing the flag on the field, nowhere near any official. Hence, no one saw the red flag.
"It looked to me like he wasn't or his coaches upstairs weren't totally sure that they should be challenging the call," Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio said Friday. "One time I must have thrown that thing 50 yards, right into the other team's huddle. That's what you have to do. Even when we had the buzzer system, I never used that. I always threw the flag and made sure the referee saw it. They allow you to leave the (sideline) box and run onto the field just to make sure."
That was basically what Mike Pereira, the league's head of officiating, said after Thursday night's botched instant replay challenge by Saban. The buzzer system went bye-bye two years ago.
Had the roles been reversed on Thursday night, everyone knows that Bill Cowher would have run onto the field and hit the referee with it.
It's impossible to say that the failed challenge cost Miami the game, but Saban's weak attempt helped every head coach in the league prepare for their next challenge. No one will make the same mistake this weekend when the remainder of the regular-season opens. The refs better duck.
Plenty of room
With the salary cap raised to $102 million this season, it was no surprise to see that most NFL teams have a lot of cap room heading into the season. In fact, 10 teams, lead by Jacksonville, have at least $8 million or more in salary-cap space. The Jaguars are $12.7 million under the cap.
New Orleans has $11 million, Arizona $10.5 million and Minnesota, Houston and New England each have $10.3 million. I guess that means that the Patriots could pay Deion Branch if they wanted to and still have plenty of room. It has to be worrisome to the NFL Players Association that teams like New England and Houston, two of the clubs worth more than $1 billion and both generating revenues among the top 10 in the league, would be keeping the cap money and not spending it.
The teams with the least amount of space are Miami ($550,452), Atlanta ($897,916) and Oakland ($1.127 million).
Turn, turn, turn
There has been a lot of turnover in the league the last couple of years. Green Bay is obviously rebuilding and retooling its roster. But the Philadelphia Eagles are considered a playoff contender, and they've had major turnover. Two years ago, the Eagles were in the Super Bowl. Well, since that game, the Eagles have only 22 of the 53 players who were in Jacksonville. They have only 13 of the 22 starters who played New England in that championship game.
Big savings
David Givens, who signed a big free-agent contract with the Tennessee Titans in the off-season, saved himself $20,000 this summer. How's that?
Well, Givens first offered Titans receiver Tyrone Calico $10,000 for his jersey No. 87. Calico said no, and Givens was forced to wear No. 89.
Later, Givens, who wore No. 87 in New England, offered Calico $20,000 for the number. Again, Calico said no.
But Givens will be wearing his customary No. 87 this Sunday against the New York Jets.
How's that? Givens got the number for free when Calico was cut by the Titans last weekend.
Good seats still available
We all know that the Minnesota Vikings have traded away their star power and it's starting to show at the ticket window. From the day they drafted Randy Moss, the Vikings have had 86 consecutive Metrodome sellouts. Well, the record is in danger this season.
The Vikings claim to have 1,000 tickets available for next Sunday's home opener against the Carolina Panthers. In fact, they have tickets available for all eight of their home games. To help sell those Carolina tickets, the Vikings have announced that Packer fans who want to purchase tickets to the Green Bay game in Minneapolis must also purchase Carolina tickets. How's that for ticket blackmail?
Minnesota's average ticket price is $71, the sixth-highest average in the league.
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said today that he hoped to have a committee of six to eight owners in place by the end of next week to begin the search for his replacement. Tags also said that he could live with the fact if a successor isn't found by his original deadline of early July.
"We all realize that virtually all of our teams go on vacation between June 15 and the first few weeks of July," he said.New England owner Bob Kraft said that the committee would then hire a head-hunting agency to expand the search for a next commissioner. Kraft said it was suggested that the head-hunting group would interview all 32 owners on their preferences and also what traits they view as desirable in the next commissioner.
Kraft said that all the owners should be included in this search because it didn't happen in 1989 when Tagliabue was finally elected after the committee initially favored the late Jim Finks, then GM of the New Orleans Saints.
Celebration time is over
As expected, excessive end zone celebrations in which props are used or when players fall to the ground will be penalized next season. Touchdown scorers will still be allowed to spike the ball and dunk over the crossbar without fear of a penalty, but the league will be cracking down on the expressive and creative routines celebrated by such receivers as Chad Johnson, Steve Smith and Terrell Owens over the years.
A failure to communicate?
The proposal to allow a defensive player to have a radio helmet in order to receive verbal instructions from the sidelines like the quarterback currently receives from the sideline playcaller was tabled for further review. Titans coach Jeff Fisher, co-chairman of the competition committee, said one of the problems is that coaches may want a defensive player other than a linebacker to have the radio helmet. Plus, with defensive personnel groupings on third down and in obvious passing downs constantly changing, Fisher and others would want the radio helmet to be rotated among defensive players.
Refs not subject to replay
The vote was virtually unanimous against the Tampa Bay proposal that questionable officiating calls be eligible to be reviewed by instant replay. Also, the league has reduced the referees' ability to review replays of challenged plays from 90 to 60 seconds. The 60 seconds will begin once the plays are shown to the referee, who is sticking his head into a hooded monitor on the sidelines. There was even a discussion of telling the network production crews when the replays begin so that a clock on the TV screen would have the correct countdown information.
John Czarnecki, a former sportswriter with over 20 years experience covering the NFL, has been the editorial consultant for the Emmy Award-winning FOX NFL Sunday since its 1994 inception. Prior, he provided exclusive information to CBS Sports' The NFL Today program from 1991 to 1993, holding a similar position.
Prior to joining CBS Sports, Czarnecki was a pro football writer for The National Sports Daily (1989-91), The Dallas Morning News (1989), and The Los Angeles Herald-Examin er. An archive of work can be found here.
