FIRST needs a playoff rule addition and this is what I propose.
Let me start by saying, I LOVE YOU REFs. You have the hardest job in all of FIRST. I could not do what you do and I don’t know how you do it. As a player, I have videos I can watch over and over again. You have to see everything in real-time and react correctly immediately.
This is the rule I propose for playoffs. During playoffs, we have a timeout the alliance can use. I would love to see NFL like rules. When an alliance believes a call is wrong, we can challenge it for head ref video review. If the calling on the field stands, we lose our timeout. If it is overturned, we keep our timeout.
I agree that you should lose a timeout either way. In the stands, you can see a different angle, and something that is obvious to you might not be obvious to the refs down on the field. I know reffing is one of the hardest jobs to do, and you all do it well, but sometimes you see something that they don’t and just don’t know why they called it that way. Having a way to double check would be great, especially if it is only during playoffs.
I agree to this fully. I feel like during qualifiers it would take too long, but during playoffs the stakes are so much higher and one match could make or brake a team’s run to states.
Just keep everything about the timeout rules the same. Only change what the ref’s are doing during the time out. Either I use my timeout to fix my robot and ref’s do nothing but watch our wrenches fly through the air, or we we use the timeout to challenge a call and they re-watch the match while we watch them watch the match or also fix our robot during that time. Either the call is overturned in 8 minutes, or if no conclusion can be reached in that amount of time, the call stands.