Thursday, March 23, 2000
Brown still opposes replay
Will vote against issue at meetings again next week
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Next week's NFL meetings are turning into an instant replay of last year's gathering. Which means Bengals President Mike Brown remains in a lonely minority when it comes to his opposition to continuing instant replay this season.
By a 6-1 vote, the NFL competition committee has recommended to the owners they use the system for another year. It's no surprise the nay vote comes from Brown, one of the three owners who voted against it last year when it was adopted for the first time since the 1991 season.
“We're trying to perfect the imperfectable,” Brown said Wednesday. “There were more than 38,000 plays, and it was used 195 times, and about a dozen times or so it was (an) obvious (correction). Of those dozen times, maybe a handful of them meant anything in a game.
“And for this we delay the games, take the focus off the game? Interrupt the tempo?” Brown asked. “The re sult is a hoax. We're kidding ourselves, and we're kidding the public.”
Brown isn't sure how his peers are going to vote next Wednesday. For instance, one of the members of the competition committee, Arizona General Manager Bob Ferguson, voted for it. But Ferguson's owner, Bill Bidwill, has never voted for instant replay. Brown, Bidwill and the Jets voted against the return to instant replay last year, when it was approved 28-3.
Ferguson and Titans coach Jeff Fisher are first-year members of the committee, which is chaired by Vikings coach Dennis Green and Tampa Bay General Manager Rich McKay. Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy, Colts President Bill Polian and Brown round out the committee.
There's no question how Brown will vote. The Bengals have voted against instant replay every time, except for the first vote that got it adopted in 1986.
“I don't think it works at all like we talk,” Brown said.
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