Cris Collinsworth wants some clarity on replay assist.
The Sunday Night Football analyst questioned NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay about when replay assist applies versus when a coach needs to challenge during the Packers’ 35-25 win over the Steelers on Sunday night. It’s a fair question, considering the NFL has expanded replay assist multiple times in recent years, and the line between the two isn’t always obvious to viewers at home.
The spirited back-and-forth came after Aaron Rodgers threw a touchdown pass to Roman Wilson late in the fourth quarter. Wilson appeared to catch the ball in the end zone, take a couple of steps, and then have it knocked out. The officials called it incomplete on the field. The Steelers had no timeouts remaining, so they couldn’t challenge the play. But replay assist called down to overturn it and rule it a touchdown anyway.
McAulay walked through why the play qualified for replay assist rather than requiring a challenge.
“On that play, it was objectively clear and obvious without any further analysis that it was a touchdown,” McAulay said. “Because he got control, two feet down, took an additional step. On the live feed, we can see it was a touchdown. So, replay assist, that’s when they can come in immediately and fix it.”
Collinsworth pressed McAulay on the distinction.
“Terry, won’t you grant me [that] it’s tough to understand what the difference is, and the blurring of the lines comes down to plays?” Collinsworth asked.
The key, according to McAulay, is how quickly a call can be corrected. If replay officials need to examine multiple angles and spend time analyzing what happened, they won’t step in. But if it’s immediately obvious from one look, that’s when replay assist applies.
“It’s evolving and they’ve gotten better with it, being more consistent with it,” McAulay said. “One of the key things I said was ‘without further analysis.’ If they’ve got to go in and look at several different angles and look at it to figure out what happened, they’re not going to assist. Plays like this that can be done really very quickly with just minimal analysis, that’s where they’re going to go to replay assist. And it needs to be objective.”
The NFL has steadily expanded what replay assist can address. This season, the league added several penalties that can be reversed through replay assist, including hits on defenseless players, face masks, horse collars, tripping, and roughing the kicker. Replay officials can overturn those penalties if clear and obvious video evidence shows the flag was incorrect. But they still can’t add penalties that weren’t called — meaning if officials miss a face mask, replay assist can’t throw a flag after the fact.
That creates situations where some calls get fixed automatically while others require coaches to challenge, which gets back to Collinsworth’s point about the confusion for fans watching at home.
“I do want to say that I really like replay assist,” Collinsworth replied. “I think it has done really important things to make sure we’re getting the right calls more often than not. I really do think that’s very important. I do think there’s a tough line for the average fan to understand when it is you have to challenge and when it is replay assist comes into play.”
The system is designed to speed up the game by correcting obvious errors without forcing coaches to burn timeouts and challenges. McAulay’s explanation that it needs to be “objectively clear and obvious without further analysis” provides the standard, but applying that standard in real time — especially as a viewer at home — isn’t always straightforward. The Wilson play worked out, but Collinsworth’s question about where the line is drawn remains relevant as replay assist continues to evolve.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.