And it's this kind of thinking that leads to there being far more coaches on the rules committee than officials!
I don't think so, our role is to enforce the rules that are created, not to decide what the rules should be. Perhaps my comment should have been more precise, but I favored brevity rather than detail. Allow me to presume that every last one of us knows what a facemask is, and what the difference is between a 5 and 15 yard violation.
We call what we see, it really doesn't matter what someone else thought they saw, or actually saw, our response is based on what we see and should not be persuaded, in any direction, by outside comments. The options we have are limited to explaining what we have seen, or ignoring what we hear. A lot depends on how, what we hear, was said and whether, or not, it merits an explanation, but far more likely it is far better to ignore the first comment(s) we hear, as a general practice.
Judgments on whether any kind of explanation is warranted is made by the covering official, and to a large degree is determined by how the manner in which the inquiry was made, and who actually made it.
