Report: League nixes booth official
‘May the best man win’ between Trubisky, Foles
NEW YORK — The NFL has tabled a proposal for a booth official who would aid calls by using a video feed, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.
The league’s competition committee told teams last month it supports studying ways to determine how officiating personnel who have access to a video feed could help on-field officials. A booth umpire would serve as an eighth game official.
But when the owners vote on rules proposals in a conference call Thursday, they instead will be looking at alternatives to a booth official, the person said on condition of anonymity because the league has not announced the move.
Those alternatives will focus on preseason tests of expanding the authority of the current replay assistant as he communicates with on-field officials.
Earlier Wednesday, the NFL clarified the rules proposal for an alternative to an onside kick.
The Philadelphia Eagles have proposed allowing one fourth-and-15 scrimmage play from 25-yard line of the team kicking off. It can only be done in regulation time, and be used twice. Should the team attempting the play succeed, it would keep the ball. If the defense is successful, its offense gets the ball at the spot where the play is blown dead.
A regular onside kick would remain an option.
Team owners will discuss and possibly vote on the Eagles’ suggestion Thursday. The idea is to virtually eliminate the onside kick that is considered more dangerous than most other football plays, while offering a substitute that could be exciting — and game-changing.
Recent rules changes regarding alignments on onside kicks and run-ups for kicking team players have turned the exercise into something of a relic attempted only in desperate situations. In the last two years, less than 10% of onside kicks succeeded.
After the kicking team notifies the referee it wants to attempt the fourth-and-15 play, it would need to reach its 40-yard line to convert. However, penalties incurred on the previous play, such as a field goal or extra point, would apply and would change the line of scrimmage for the play, which would remain a fourthand-15 attempt.
Once a team has opted for the scrimmage play, that decision sticks — unless the team calls a timeout before running the fourth-and-15 play. It could then notify the referee it has decided to kick off instead, and do so. That would seem like a waste of a timeout.
If the offense has run the alternative play and been flagged for a penalty, the yardage is marked off and another scrimmage play is run. Switching to kicking off instead is barred in that scenario. The game clock would not run for the play, though a 25-second play clock would be in force.
BEARS: The announcement came April 3 over a conference call with local media. Chicago general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy declared “an open competition” for the starting quarterback job.
It was a significant development but hardly surprising. The Bears had put the writing on the wall in spray paint two weeks earlier when they traded a fourthround pick to the Jaguars for Nick Foles.
The Bears later rejected the fifth-year option on Trubisky’s rookie deal and made it clear they want to enter the 2020 season with a starting QB who inspires confidence in his team. May the best quarterback win. Will that be Trubisky? Will it be Foles?
“That’ll be the big question,” Nagy said to Rich Eisen on NBCSN. “All he can do, and the discussions that we’ve had is you can only control the opportunity that you have right now. Control what you can control. He has gotten to this point through a lot of hard work. And now? The way he has been in these meetings that we’ve had, in these discussions that we’ve had, I absolutely love his attitude. I don’t think he could have handled this situation any better.
GIANTS: A judge granted Giants corner DeAndre Baker permission to travel for work purposes Wednesday morning during an ongoing investigation into Baker’s involvement in a May 13 alleged armed robbery.
Baker, 22, who was arrested May 16 on four counts of armed robbery with a firearm and four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, had requested the ability to travel to the state of New Jersey for work purposes with the Giants.
Now he will be able to — if the Giants will have him — provided he satisfies certain conditions.
Baker’s conditions, as outlined by Judge Mariya Weekes of the 17th Judicial Court for Broward County (Florida), are that he must provide his pretrial officer with: “1) a detailed itinerary of the activities he will partake in while out of state; 2) the address he will reside at while out of state; (and) 3) the date the Defendant will be traveling out of state and the date of his return.”