Dan Bickley of the Arizona Republic has a beef with how fans and teams are becoming more and more dependent on instant replay (and technology in general) in sports.

Watch a significant amount of football, and the sheer volume of penalties in today’s games is guaranteed to drive you nuts. There are penalties for illegal shifts, illegal formations and illegal motion.

In 2007, there were 741 penalties called for a false start alone, and another 602 for holding.
The game has become prisoner to hyperactive officials with a great command of the rule book and no sense of restraint.

I believe the culture inside football is prompting officials to throw more and more flags. They are worried if they don’t catch every black-and-white infraction they will be downgraded. Additionally, the safety net of instant replay seems to make throwing the flag all that much easier. It has certainly made their walk to the parking lot a lot safer.

But the technology is failing everyone. Already this season, two crucial replay challenges couldn’t award fumbles to the team that recovered because the whistle had blown. In other words, if you actually mess up twice on the same play – blowing the call and the whistle – it can nullify all attempts at justice.

In another comical instance, Hochuli encountered a malfunctioning review booth. He couldn’t get any of the pictures within the allotted two minutes prescribed in the rule book, so he could not overturn the call.

Imagine that. These games become pumped full of commercials, bloating barges of programming, and we can’t wait another minute for the right call?

Bickley makes some solid points, but I’m going to go with the clichéd standby of, ‘it is what it is.’ As technology continues to grow, so does everyone’s desire to use it. And sports are no exception. If we have the technology to review a play to see if there was an infraction, then why shouldn’t we use it? Isn’t getting the calls right the most important thing at the end of the day? Sure, there are going to be times when technology fails us as it did in the Denver-San Diego game. But more times than not its going to be an aid.

And I’m not worried about referees calling a lot of penalties. Yeah, it gets annoying (especially when you feel that your team is getting the brunt of the calls), but if a team or player commits an infraction, throw the flag. It’s that simple. (Or at least, it should be that simple.)