Nov 30, 2013 5 min read

The digital video recorder is one of the greatest inventions in human history. Maybe up there in the Top 10 with the TV remote control and cable TV.

You probably know it as a DVR, but it’s the technology that allows you to record television signals. If you don’t have it, find a way to afford the 15 bucks a month to get it. It’ll change your life.

If you have DVR and you’re a sports fan, I don’t have to tell you how it changes your life by allowing you to decide what time games begin. If you can hide from the score, you can pick the time to watch the Penguins, Steelers, Pirates, Monday Night Football or any other game any time you want without commercials and enjoy it just as much if not more.

Of course, you can also freeze and rewind any game you are watching live, which is great if you happen to be blessed with the ability to fall asleep anywhere at anytime. It’s easy to catch up on any missed goals or touchdowns.

I love my DVR for obvious reasons, but I’ve also learned how to use it to make better judgments while watching games. I can not only replay something as many times as I want, but I can replay it in real time.

That’s what I did with Emmanuel Sanders’ big drop on the Steelers two-point conversion attempt in Baltimore Tuesday night. The network shows us replays in super-duper slow motion from eight or 10 different angles and, on every one, the ball floats right into Sanders’ hands and bounces away.

It might be fair to say that that ball should be caught by any NFL receiver, but it’s not fair to say it was an easy catch. Watch it at the speed Sanders had to watch it, and you’ll see Ravens cornerback Chykie Brown screened him on the play. Sanders didn’t see the ball until it was bouncing off his hands.

We watch our games on huge screens with perfect pictures, and the networks might, with all the beautiful slow motion replays, have lulled us into thinking the game slows down the same way for the people playing and officiating the games.

DVR has allowed me to try to be more fair. I watch the play in real life speed and make a judgment by putting myself in the player’s or the official’s real life situation.

The easy catches and the easy calls don’t look so easy.

• Mike Tomlin deserves to pay a stiff fine for stepping in front of Jacoby Jones during his kickoff return Thursday night. The replay, at any speed, makes it obvious Tomlin was trying to slow Jones down. The NFL has to send a message to everybody who watches the game from the sideline that they will pay an expensive price for interfering with the action on the field, even if it is accidental.

• Le’Veon Bell had his breakout game against the Ravens. For the first time, he showed why he might have been worth the Steelers’ second round draft pick. The 43-yard run in the third quarter was his first real highlight video run of his Steelers career.

Unfortunately, it might be a while before he gets to add to his video highlights. His head took two hits on his touchdown run in the fourth quarter. The first came from the helmet of Jimmy Smith of the Ravens, the second from the frozen field and that one came when Bell wasn’t wearing a helmet. No prognosis has been given as I write this, but that did not look like a short term head injury.

• By the way, the outcry from Steelers fans for a helmet-to-helmet penalty for Smith on the play is a perfect example of fans and/or media expecting an official to make a call based on what they saw in super slow motion. The issue is whether the NFL should make helmet-to-helmet hits reviewable during the game. Smith could end up with a fine, but it’s unrealistic to expect an official to make that call in real time.

• And I didn’t make a mistake by referring to Bell’s touchdown run in the fourth quarter. I know it was nullified. It was a touchdown in real time.

• Kara Lawson did an excellent job as the analyst on ESPN’s coverage of the Pitt-Stanford basketball game Tuesday night. She’s a former player for Pat Summit at Tennessee, and I’d rather listen to her than Dickie V, baby.

• The Washington D.C. taxpayers were never really on board to pay for the Nationals $750 million ballpark, but the politicians used their money and built it anyway. Now, the Nationals are asking for $300 million more to put a roof on it. Don’t blame the Nationals owners. They would be stupid not to try to find out if the politicians are corrupt or dumb enough to give it to them. Blame the politicians for saying yes, which, it says here, they will eventually say.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.