After further review, the answer is no

Some of us have been railing against instant replay for years.

But if Brian Billick wants a seat on the bandwagon, it's his. There's still a little time and plenty of room, especially for a celebrity.

On Sunday, Billick experienced a life-changing moment. One moment he was for instant replay and the next he was against it.

"I quit. I give up," the Baltimore coach said after the Ravens' home game against Denver. "I've tried to be an advocate for instant replay. I've tried to do the company line. I've said the right things.

"Dump the whole thing. We have spent so much money on this thing and it doesn't work," he added. "I've tried."

And get this: Billick's team won, handily. The Ravens beat the Broncos 26-6, despite the two replay calls that went against Baltimore and ignited the slow burn.

So maybe just to prove how peeved he was, or to remind everybody what's wrong with instant replay, Billick did the whole routine again. Only this time he began by looking skyward, making reporters think he planned to address the man upstairs instead of NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

"League," Billick said, "I'm sorry. I've tried to hold the line. Dump it. Get rid of the whole damn thing because it doesn't work."

Amen.

Covered already

Technically speaking, this wasn't the first time Billick wavered on the issue. Six days earlier, after a loss to Cincinnati, he climbed all over referee Johnny Grier for another replay call. Even though he went on to call himself "still an advocate," Billick admitted he was losing confidence in the system.

"I don't know that Johnny wasn't looking at pictures of his kids in that little booth," he said.

In one respect, the timing of his conversion couldn't have been better. Though few people are paying attention right now, the instant replay rule expires after this season and needs 24 votes from the league's 32 teams to remain in place for 2004.

The original arguments against replay haven't changed: It's not foolproof, it delays games unnecessarily, intimidates referees and begs second-guessing. There's not always a decisive camera angle and besides, the league's own studies confirm the refs are almost always right.

That's the way things will be so long as humans make the first call or last. That's what finally dawned on Billick. Just hope it isn't too late for a few other NFL movers and shakers to come around.

Worse for wear

In 2001, 25 of the 31 teams voted to approve it for three years. But Colts general manager Bill Polian, who abstained the last time around, is taking an increasingly dim view of the system. His coach, Tony Dungy, opposes instant replay and the reversal of a call in last week's loss at Carolina prompted a threat from Polian.

"We'll be proponents of doing away with a system that simply doesn't work," he said on his radio show in Indianapolis.

Instant replay isn't the cause of the current unruliness rippling across the NFL, but it hasn't stopped referees from getting shoved around, either.

In addition to the $50,000 fine levied against Warren Sapp for playing "Chicken" with officials, the league has zapped Bills safeties Izell Reese and Lawyer Milloy, as well as Chargers safety Terrence Keil, $25,000 each for running into the zebras during recent games.

Verbal assaults have been almost as frequent. As they tumbled down the standings, Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Greg Blache and a few members of his unit seemed to be saving their best shots for the officials in postgame news conferences. None of their paychecks were docked, however, suggesting the league office didn't mind its refs being called lousy so long as no one suggested the reason they were lousy is because they were on the take.

Few coaches or players -- if any -- believe that. But an increasing number believe the quality of the officiating hasn't kept pace with the game on the field, and that the gap is only widening.

Exactly how Tagliabue plans to restore confidence in those officials is anyone's guess.

Last December, two Minnesota newspapers ran parts of a confidential memo from the league to the Vikings acknowledging the refs made nine mistakes in a game they lost 26-22 to Green Bay. Predictably, there were increased calls to make the officials full-time NFL employees, and just as predictably, jokes about what a waste of time that would be.

"I just want to know what they're going to do for five days a week," Ravens owner Art Modell said, "eye exercises?

Demanding a higher standard from officials is fine, but the only thing switching from part-time to full-time help buys the NFL is time. The bigger problem is allowing their mistakes to be plastered across JumboTrons in stadiums and on TVs at homes over and over.

Because as Billick found out, the only thing more maddening than seeing referees blow a call once is waiting around to watch them do it again.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press.