The NFL’s inability to have tower cameras at every game has created a competitive imbalance. And the NFL is pointing the finger at the networks for it.

The NFL should actually be pointing the finger at itself.

Every game should have pylon cameras. The most hyped games do this. Smaller games don’t do this.

Walt Anderson, a former referee and senior vice president of officiating who now serves, among other things, as the league’s on-air rules analyst, addressed the situation on the NFL Network show. Game day morning.

“Some games will have camera pylons, others won’t,” Anderson said. “It’s really up to the networks to decide.”

Yet is this the case? The NFL, on most issues, micromanages the networks. This is what happens when supply is limited. The supplier dictates the terms to the customer, regardless of the price the customer pays for the product.

If the NFL wants tower cameras at every game, it just needs to make two phone calls. One at Fox and one at CBS. Because these are the games that don’t have pylon cameras. The smallest, the second level and below.

Last week’s Falcons-Bucs game, which included the Fox No. 2 crew, did not have mast cameras. As a result, officials ruled that Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts scored a touchdown when he apparently did not. However, in the absence of tower cameras, there was no way to overturn the apparently erroneous decision on the ground.

Anderson said something else that makes it even more important for the league to tell Fox and CBS to reconfigure budgets to include a position for goal-line pylon cameras.

“As teams move around the field, many cameras move with them,” Anderson said. “So on some plays, especially on long breakaway plays, there may not be a camera on the goal line.”

RIGHT. So have pylon cameras for those times.

The bottom line is that the NFL cares more about the bottom line than getting it right. Even though the league has the power to tell CBS and Fox to go all-in on pylon cameras, there’s a broader corporate dance for which the music still plays softly. For example, networks (other than ESPN/ABC) are currently upset that the NFL forced Monday Night Football on ABC for most of the remainder of the season. It’s not exactly the best time for the NFL to be telling Fox and CBS to spend more money in the name of good calls.

Yet it must happen. This should have happened when the current TV deals were made. Hopefully this will happen in the next round of negotiations.

Regardless of when that happens, the league has the power to make it happen right now, if the NFL is willing to consume the political capital (or pay the money) necessary to make it happen. Unless the NFL does this, it’s fair to say that the NFL doesn’t care as much as it should about making every call successful.