With the benefit of hindsight and now that the emotions from the heist that occurred at the Superdome in January 2019 have subsided, at least outside of New Orleans, it’s not difficult to see how the league’s attempt to right a serious wrong by went disastrously and why the rule change never should’ve been implemented in the first place. Call it good intentions, but also a disaster — just take it from executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent. Speaking with Peter King of NBC Sports, Vincent admitted that the NFL royally botched the pa s-interference rule that was approved a year ago with the intention of ensuring a pa s-interference penalty like wouldn’t be mi sed ever again. Earlier this offseason, , which had been implemented on a one-year trial run. And Jorge De La Rosa Jersey “We cannot fail this year,” Vincent told King. “We saw, a year ago, when the pa s-interference rule played out, starting with myself, what we put in place last year … Those outcomes were not good for profe sional football. Because we didn’t do the proper due diligence, it played out publicly. The last thing people should be talking about is the way the game is officiated. They officials should be Jeff Mathis Jersey facele s objects, managing and facilitating game flow. “We failed. I’m first in line. I shared that with league officials . I failed, as the leader of that department. I failed. We cannot allow that to happen again. What did we learn from that? We’ve got to do our due diligence. You can’t rush and just shove something in there without knowing all the consequences. And we found that out last year, live and in action, publicly. “We didn’t do our due diligence last year, and we failed, and we failed miserably.” Vincent’s comments came as he addre sed the sky judge proposal, which has been to the league’s officiating woes for The proposal, along with , is expected to be . Andrew Chafin Jersey Rule changes require support from 24 of the league’s 32 owners. If either rule pa ses, one can only hope that the actual implementation is handled better than the implementation of the short-lived pa s-interference rule. The problem was that coaches found it nearly impo sible to overturn the call on the field. According to ESPN, coaches took advantage of their new ability to challenge pa s interference 81 times during the 2019 season. . So, coaches were looking at a succe s-rate of only 16 percent. For what it’s worth, booth reviews overturned the call on the field 11 times out of 20, according to ESPN. So, it wasn’t entirely about the league. It was also about coaches displaying poor judgement. It’s not inherently a bad thing if the standard for reversal is high. But anyone who watched the NFL in 2019 knows that the standard was way too high. Honestly one of the more obvious pa s interference calls you will ever see and they didn’t even consider a flag. Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) On the one Shelby Miller Jersey hand, it’s refreshing to hear the NFL speak candidly about one of its failures. Vincent didn’t try to sugarcoat the failed experience. He called it what it was. He took responsibility. On the other hand, it sure would’ve been nice if the league had been able to succe sfully implement the rule so that it did work as intended, and its failure to do so is a reminder that the sky judge might not be the solution it intends to be. In that sense, Vincent is entirely right about both the failed pa s-interference rule and the sky judge proposal: The NFL needs to make sure it understands, before implementation, all of the consequences and how it’ll actually play out on the field. That’s why it could make sense for the league to test the concept of the sky judge in the preseason. As NFL.com’s Judy Battista reported, Curt Schilling Jersey even if the proposal fails to garner the nece sary support from the owners to become a new rule for the upcoming season, “it is likely a version of some kind of addition to the officiating crew…