The Cincinnati Bengals aren’t proponents of NFL instant replay, and they aren’t changing their stance even if it leaves them in a minority of one.
A day after casting the lone “nay” vote in the NFL owners’ 31-1 verdict on expanding replay to include pass-interference non-calls, Bengals owner Mike Brown explained his rationale Wednesday.
“The reason that we are against it is that it interrupts the game. It changes the character of the game, in my mind,” he told reporters. “I think it’s in some ways sort of odd to see people all sitting there waiting for somebody in New York to tell them it is or it isn’t. I’d rather just play the game.”
Brown, 83, added that he is following the team tradition set by his father, Bengals co-founder Paul Brown.
“The history of it is my father was against (replay),” Brown said. “If you go back to the very beginning, and I’d be curious to know when that was (1976), we have been against it for all these years since. …
“It is the fact that there’s going to be officiating error. But it’s also the fact that instant replay doesn’t always correct it. It just compounds the problem on occasion. There is no answer, at least there is no answer that we’re going to have instant replay and there won’t be any more bad pass interference calls. I don’t think so. … It may be that it works great. We’ll see. I have my doubts.”
The Bengals have missed the playoffs each of the past three seasons. They haven’t won a playoff game since a wild-card-round victory after the 1990 season, with the 28-year postseason winless drought currently the longest among NFL teams.
