After a late game interception that maybe finally closed the door on the Falcons in Sunday night's loss to the Bears, I question whether Instant Replay in the NFL is really having the right effect on the calls in the game, and here's why: The rulings on the field seem to be different than they would have been if we were still in the non-instant replay-era. Officials make calls sometimes that allow a challenge to be made instead of relying on their instinct on the field, so that they can go to a replay situation to "get the call right." Well, in the case of the interception at the tail end of the Falcons-Bears game, they did not get the call right.

The original call on the field was that the ball was fumbled, and then recovered by the Bears as the ball popped up out of reciever Michael Jenkins' hands. The officials then conferred and decided to overturn the ruling, saying that the pass was incomplete and that the ball was intercepted because of a bobble. However, had the ruling on the field as a fumble been kept, the review would have resulted in an overturned call, as the ball clearly did not come loose until Jenkins' hit the ground, thus ending the play before the fumble. But since it was ruled incomplete, the official had to first judge that Jenkins' had possession of the ball in the replay, which was not necessarily clear from the replays shown on television (however, the ESPN commentators had the ruling wrong, they stated that the receiver had to make a "football move" for the pass to be a catch, however, a player cannot make a "football move" if he is hit before he has a chance to turn his head, in fact, the final ruling was that the ball was "juggled").

The reason the officials on the field changed the call from a fumble on the field to an incomplete pass was to allow them the opportunity to review the entire play in instant replay. If they had ruled fumble, it would have taken two challenges, one by Atlanta challenging the validity of the fumble (which would have resulted in no fumble), and then a challenge by Chicago questioning the validity of the catch (which would actually have not been overturned because there was not evidence of this). Ultimately, the changing of the initial ruling on the field to allow for a single instant replay challenge to cover the entire play ended up costing the Falcons possession of the ball on what was the Falcons best drive of the game, and also best chance for the Falcons to put points on the board late in the game and get back into it. The interception essentially ended any chance the Falcons had of closing the gap in points.

Instead of relying on the instincts that are the actual reason that these officials have jobs in the NFL, officials are erring on the side of "well, maybe" and concluding on the field "let's just rule it this way, so that we can review it." Instant Replay has now created an atmosphere in the NFL that the officials believe they are not capable of making the correct instinctive call.