The NFL’s failure to have pole cameras at every game has created a competitive imbalance. And the NFL points the finger at the networks for it.

The NFL should point the finger back at itself.

Every game should have pillar cameras. The highest profile games do. Lower profile games don’t.

Walt Anderson, a former referee and senior vice president of officiating who now serves, among other things, as the league’s live rules analyst, addressed the situation on the NFL Network. Gameday Morning.

“Some games will have camera poles, some games won’t,” Anderson said. “That really depends on the networks.”

Is it, though? The NFL, on most issues, micromanages the networks. It’s what happens when supply is limited. The supplier dictates the customer’s terms, regardless of how much the customer pays for the product.

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

Last week’s Falcons-Bucs game, which had the Fox crew no. 2, had no pillar rooms. As a result, the officials ruled that Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts scored a touchdown when he apparently did not. In the absence of pylon cameras, however, there was no way to overturn the seemingly erroneous decision on the field.

Anderson also said something that makes it even more important for the league to tell Fox and CBS to reconfigure the budgets to include a line item for the goalpost cameras.

“As teams move up and down the field, there are a lot of cameras that move with them,” Anderson said. “So some plays, especially long breakaway plays, there might not be a camera on the goal line.”

Correct. So you have pole cameras for those moments.

The bottom line is that the NFL is more concerned with the bottom line than getting it right. Even if the league has the power to tell CBS and Fox to roll for the pole cameras, there’s a larger corporate dance to which the music is always light. For example, the networks (other than ESPN/ABC) are currently bothered by being forced by the NFL Monday night football on ABC for most of the rest of the season. This is not exactly the best time for the NFL to tell Fox and CBS to spend more money in the name of getting the calls right.

However, it has to happen. It should have happened when the current TV deals ended. Hopefully it will happen in the next round of talks.

Regardless of when that happens, the league has the power to do it right now if the NFL is willing to expend the political capital (or pay the money) necessary to get there. Unless and until the NFL does, it’s fair to say the NFL doesn’t care as much as it should about getting all the calls right.