Troy Vincent Admits NFL 'Failed Miserably' With Pass Interference Replay Review
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Imagine blowing something so badly that nobody in the world even has even the slightest appetite to try to fix it? Imagine being proven so incapable of handling what seems to be a simple concept that after just one attempt at instituting a new system, you have to scrap it altogether without even attempting something to replace it?
For the NFL and its terrific failure of pass interference review, there's no imagination necessary. And in the rarest of rare occasions ... the league has actually admitted that to be so.
Troy Vincent, the NFL's executive vice president of football operations, told Peter King exactly what every football fan in the world knew to be true.
"We didn't do [our due diligence] last year, and we failed," Vincent said. "And we failed miserably."
Hey hey! Three cheers for honesty at the National Football League!
Even though the failure seemingly had more to do with head of officiating Al Riveron than anybody else, Vincent nobly fell on the swod on behalf of the league.
"We failed. I'm first in line. I shared that [with league officials]. I failed, as the leader of that department. I failed," Vincent said to King. "We cannot allow that to happen again."
Hey that's great. I mean, everyone already knew that. We knew it during the preseason. And the regular season, as well. Postseason, too. It didn't need to be said. But a little bit of accountability is still nice.
Being willing to wear all the blame for a catastrophe seems to be a large part of Troy's job. Remember when some jabronis sprayed some dangerous paint on the field, resulting in the last-minute cancellation of the Hall of Fame Game? Troy wore that one, too.
Now, if Vincent wants to continue moving forward while clearing out his conscience this spring, he could come right out and take the blame for not having even the faintest idea of the Ideal Gas Law prior to engineering the world's sloppiest science experiment on the evening of Jan. 18, 2015 -- a minor issue that set off the world's stupidest "scandal."
There might be a dozen more apology-worthy moments from that saga, too. At least a dozen. Maybe a baker's dozen.
New Englanders might also appreciate an apology from Vincent regarding his admission that some rules from the future were applied in the present during Super Bowl LII. Maybe he could apologize for apparently taking five months (and counting) to review what is obviously B-roll footage filmed by someone out in the open who wasn't even trying to be sneaky and admitted to everything right away.
That may sound like a lot, but hey -- it's #ApologySZN. Let 'er rip, Troy. Maybe it'll soothe the soul.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
