A Controversial Play Prompts Calls for an NFL Rule Change

When the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills on Sunday to advance to the Super Bowl, one of the key moments came on a 4th-and-1 play in the final quarter. Bills quarterback Josh Allen tried a QB sneak, and it was so close that one official said he made it and another said he didn't, notes Sports Illustrated. After a video review, officials ruled against Buffalo, and KC got the ball back and scored a go-ahead TD on the ensuing drive. It's all but impossible to know with certainty whether the refs got the call right given the pileup of players—see video—and that has critics wondering why the NFL hasn't yet put a chip in the ball and made use of electronic spotting.

• Nancy Armour implores the league to "join the 21st century" in a USA Today column. "The NFL has desperately needed electronic spotting for years now," she writes. "Now, after the AFC Championship turned on an egregious spot, the NFL has to make implementing it the top priority this off-season." The league certainly has the money for it. "All it needs is the motive, and this game surely provided it."
• "In my 24 years on television I have said the words MICROCHIP IN THE BALL a hundred times," tweets ESPN analyst Tony Reali. "I do not understand how the greatest league in the world still has a guess method. Eye balling, from 30 yds away, trying to squint through a mass of humanity and walk in a straightish line to where it was, even when the other guy from the other sideline is somewhere else. Technology exists, technology works, tech would be fun!"
• On the CBS broadcast, NFL rules analyst Gene Steratore said he thought Allen gained the first down "by about a third of the football," and Jim Nantz and Tony Romo agreed, per Awful Announcing.
• Could one game lead to a rule change? A 2022 playoff game between the same two teams did just that, in regard to overtime.

(More NFL stories.)