Deion Sanders, Rob Gronkowski and LeGarrette Blount play Xbox games Wednesday at a Microsoft Store in Minneapolis. - AP

Steelers

Lolley: Fixing NFL replay, living with Le'Veon, Super Bowl scene

By Dale Lolley

Jan 31, 2018 • 10:17 pm

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Roger Goodell said Wednesday in his state-of-the-league address what every NFL fan has known for several years: The league needs to completely start over with its rule on what does and does not constitute a catch.

"People that have great football experience can disagree about what’s a catch," Goodell said. "I would like to start back instead of adding to the rule or subtracting from the rule, is start over again and look at the rule fundamentally from the start. I think when you start adding or subtracting, it leads to confusion."

That would be welcome around the league. Goodell admitted officials are correctly administering the rule on most of their judgments, including, for example, Jesse James' catch/non-catch Dec. 17 against the Patriots. The problem with that, of course, is that most sane people look at the James play and say he had gained control of the ball before momentarily losing control of it when he reached for the end zone.

In the parlance of the league, "He did not survive the ground" with the ball in his possession:

But it's a ridiculous rule. At every other level of football, that's a catch.

Certainly, NFL players should be held to a higher standard than every other level. And making them establish two feet in bounds rather than just one as it is at the lower levels, does that. But if it looks like a catch, it's probably a catch. And this play looked like a catch.

The correction is simple. If you catch the ball cleanly and get both feet down or a knee down in the field of play, it's a catch. If you have to dive to make the catch and the ball hits the ground, it's not a catch.

• Goodell also said replay is taking too long and is being used too much. I couldn't agree more.

Given all of the camera angles immediately available to the league office and head official Al Riveron, it shouldn't take that long. If it takes more than 90 seconds to look at a play, the call on the field should stand. Period. Replay wasn't instituted in the NFL to nitpick every play. It was added to make sure obvious mistakes can be corrected. The league went way beyond that this season.

The time has come to scale that back to replay's original intent.

• The more I've thought about it, the more I've become convinced the Steelers will be better off cutting bait with Le'Veon Bell.

Bell is one of the most talented players in the NFL, not just at running back, but at any position.

Touchdowns such as the one above are reasons why. He's one of the best pure running backs in the league. And he catches the ball well. And he is excellent in pass protection.

But the Steelers will be hard-pressed to sign him to a long-term contract extension considering he wants $14 to $15 million per season. The team can place the franchise tag on him again at a cost of $14.5 million, but to do so, they would have to free up some cap space.

That could easily be done by releasing a couple of players and restructuring some contracts, but that also would not allow the team to do much else in this offseason. And therein lies the rub.

The Steelers have some holes to fill in their defense, most notably at inside linebacker and possibly at free safety if the team doesn't think Mike Mitchell can bounce back and be worth his $5 million base salary or $8 million cap hit.

Mitchell would probably accept a pay cut to return. Regardless of what people think about him, he is a team-first player. He desperately wants to win a championship.

That doesn't mean, however, he would necessarily be the starting free safety. I still think Cameron Sutton should get a look there. And the Steelers also will address the position in the draft.

And just dumping Mitchell wouldn't give the Steelers enough cap space to sign Bell or cover his franchise tag salary. Some kind of contract extension with Ben Roethlisberger, who is set to count $23.2 million against the cap in 2018, would help.

The problem, however, is that the Steelers have seven players on their roster whose salaries will jump to $10 million or more next season. Those players -- Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, Stephon Tuitt, Cameron Heyward, Joe Haden, David DeCastro and Maurkice Pouncey, all are players the team, quite frankly, can't do without. And they will eat up approximately $100 million in salary cap space.

We don't know exactly what the salary cap is going to be in 2018, but it's estimated to be around $180 million. So, adding another big contract to that means the Steelers would have eight players eating up over 60 percent of their cap space.

That's just too much. So I let Bell walk, as hard as that is to do, and recoup a third-round draft pick as compensation in 2019.

• So who replaces Bell? I don't have a lot of faith in James Conner to stay healthy and be an every-down back. The Steelers would need someone to supplement his carries.

Beyond Bell, New England's Dion Lewis and Carlos Hyde are the next two top backs available, but both have injury histories that make Bell look like the football version of Cal Ripken.

I did talk to Lewis Wednesday, though, and asked him about his feelings about Mike Tomlin. Lewis, of course, played collegiately at Pitt, which shares its practice facility with the Steelers.

Tomlin always makes a point of interacting with the better players at Pitt. He lets them know he knows who they are.

"I used to see him all the time," said Lewis of Tomlin. "He's a great coach."

The problem with trying to replace Bell with a rookie is that most rookies struggle in blitz pickup, something with which Conner had issues in his first season.

• It's hard to believe anyone outside of New England will be rooting for the Patriots to win the Super Bowl, but judging from what I've seen in Minnesota, the hometown football fans aren't supporting the Eagles.

At the opening ceremony Monday night, the Eagles were booed when they were introduced. The media contingents covering Eagles availabilities have also been a little sparse compared to those for the Patriots.

Then again, New England's media availabilities have been just across the hall from the media workroom at The Mall of America. To get to Philadelphia's availabilities, you have to go all the way to the other side of the mall.

And apparently, that's just too far for most people to walk.

To be fair, it is a LONG walk across this mall. I passed three different Caribou Coffee shops on the way to Eagles availability. At least I think they were different shops. I could have been going in circles.

But given how much coverage the Patriots have gotten over the, oh I don't know, better part of the past two decades, you'd think the media wouldn't show so much apathy toward the Eagles, as well.

I did notice, however, that the betting line for this game, which opened at 5 1/2 points, is down to 4 1/2 points in favor of New England. So there is at least some interest in the Eagles.

But Vikings fans aren't forgetting or forgiving the Eagles for knocking off their team.

• The Steelers on Wednesday signed exclusive-rights free agent offensive lineman Matt Feiler to a one-year deal. Just a little housekeeping move there.

• I have talked to a couple of Pro Football Hall of Fame electors this week and they both told me they don't think Alan Faneca gets into the hall this year.

The problem, it seems, is not anyone you might think. Apparently the New York voters think longtime Jets center Kevin Mawae needs to get in before they even think about voting for Faneca, who played for the Jets for two seasons after leaving the Steelers.

WHAT'S BREWING

• Chris Bradford has the Penguins' practice today in Cranberry Township, as well as a Justin Schultz feature and the latest on Conor Sheary's injury.

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Carter and Bradford talk hockey and the Super Bowl on Java: