PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : Bring Back Instant Replay for Playoffs

The average pro game was stopped twice last season for instant-replay reviews. And, each week, an average of five officiating calls were reversed.

That’s what’s different about the NFL this fall.

For the first time in seven years, the officiating is all being done on the field. The league voted last spring to discontinue its flawed instant-replay process this season--and so far, almost nobody has missed it.

There have been few controversies.

Some NFL people are still nervous, though. The potential for big trouble is still out there.

Any playoff game could be won or lost on an official’s erroneous call. Even the Super Bowl game.

And if that happens--if a postseason result is altered by a bad call that would have been caught by instant replay--the NFL will hear about it.

As Denver Bronco Coach Dan Reeves said the other day: “It’s ridiculous to have a tool that can correct bad mistakes, and not use it.”

Reeves’ protest, one of the few in the league this year, was made after a recent game with the San Diego Chargers, during which a call went against the Broncos.

Why didn’t anyone hear him?

The biggest part of the explanation, probably, is that the nation’s TV broadcasters aren’t talking as much about officials’ mistakes this season. There are no leisurely instant-replay timeouts during which the TV people can endlessly discuss officiating mistakes, as they once did, and buttress their opinions with re-runs from many angles.

Several weeks ago, the Monday night announcers barely mentioned what seemed to be an official’s major mistake in Philadelphia, where Dallas running back Emmitt Smith obviously fumbled away the ball. After the referee restored possession to the Cowboys, they came right up with a big play that set up their only touchdown--and the announcers talked about that.

In a fast-moving world, it isn’t always what you do that counts, it’s what seems vital to TV.

And when there are 14 pro games a week, nothing that happens during one of the 14 is likely to stir up the nation.

During the instant-replay debate of the last five or six years, it has been insufficiently realized that there’s a wide gulf between postseason play--in which the national focus is on one game at a time--and the regular season, in which the focus is split 14 ways and thus widely diffused. Nobody in Minneapolis worries much about anything that goes wrong in Houston.

By contrast, every fan will know it if there’s a decisive officiating blunder in the playoffs.

Even though the NFL seems to be proving that it doesn’t need regular-season instant replay, the process clearly belongs in the postseason.

Tough stretch: One good thing happened to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, when they won a game despite the continued absence of linebacker John Offerdahl, who has sat out three starts because of a pulled abdominal muscle.

Offerdahl was hurt the day the Dolphins won their sixth in a row, after which they lost two in a row without him.

“Offerdahl is one of the most valuable defensive players in the league,” Joel Buchsbaum, the Pro Football Weekly personnel expert, said from New York. “(In recent years), the Dolphins have gone 12-4 when he’s playing, and something like 9-10 when he isn’t. His leadership is what does it.”

At Indianapolis Sunday--against the team that ended their 6-0 streak on Oct.25--the Dolphins learned how to win without Offerdahl. And, perhaps, they barely learned in time.

Their record in the AFC East matches Buffalo’s 7-2 as the Dolphins begin the toughest stretch of their season. In their next four, they will be home to Buffalo and Houston, then will play at New Orleans and San Francisco.

They walloped the Bills last time, 37-10, but they had Offerdahl then. He is questionable Monday night’s game against Buffalo--and so are the Dolphins.

Coach of year: The Minnesota Vikings (7-2) all but ended the race in the NFC Central with a 35-7 romp at Tampa Bay on Sunday before the Chicago Bears (4-5) were upset by Cincinnati.

And for most critics, that all but ended the race for coach of the year, with Minnesota’s Dennis Green still well in front.

“He’s a great all-around coach,” said New York Giant wide receiver Ed McCaffrey, who was one of Green’s players at Stanford. “He’s very honest with you, always tells you where you stand.”

Many young coaches stumble over player relations. If that’s Green’s strength, one reason is that he spells out what he expects of his players, insists on it, and gets it.

Last week, when he took the Vikings to Chicago for a Monday night game, Green could have simply imposed a Sunday night curfew.

Instead, he reminded his players about Chicago’s jazz clubs.

“I love their jazz clubs,” he said, then added pointedly: “We’ll all go another time.”

They routed the Bears, 38-10.

Ditka down: Some of Chicago’s sports fans and sportswriters, reviewing Coach Mike Ditka’s 4-5 start this season, have not only fired him but are busy helping Bear President Michael McCaskey screen his successors.

One writer is lobbying for Bill Parcells, the former Giant coach. Or, if Parcells is unavailable, he will settle for former San Francisco Coach Bill Walsh.

What has happened to Ditka? Is he in a five-year losing streak?

Well, not yet.

As recently as last season, the Bears finished 11-5.

In the last seven years, in fact, since Ditka turned them around by winning 10 of 16 in 1984, the Bears have finished 15-1, 14-2, 11-4, 12-4, 6-10, 11-5 and 11-5.

“Our secret all this time is that Ditka has always had us ready for every game, big or little,” linebacker Mike Singletary said.

Of the NFL’s 28 clubs, only San Francisco and Washington have been as consistently successful as the Bears in recent years.

But that isn’t nearly enough for Ditka’s critics. And one problem is that after 11 years in Chicago, he has so many critics.

Johnson up: Things could hardly be more different in Dallas, where Coach Jimmy Johnson continues to rough up the rest of the league.

Is some of it luck?

It’s worth remembering that Johnson got lucky on at least one thing--his quarterback, Troy Aikman.

The year that Dallas finished 1-15 and qualified for first shot in the draft, Aikman was everybody’s top choice.

What if Vinny Testaverde had been that year’s quarterback?

At Miami in 1986, Testaverde was as highly regarded as Aikman at UCLA in 1988.

If Aikman were two years younger and Testaverde two years older, Aikman instead of Testaverde would have gone to Tampa Bay in 1987, almost certainly, and Testaverde instead of Aikman to Dallas in 1989.

And in that case, the Cowboys wouldn’t be where they are today. Three Buccaneer coaches have found it necessary to bench Testaverde.

Aikman, meanwhile, keeps improving.