Spots Near Line to Gain

[bossman72]

This brings up a thought....is it better to look bad as a crew but be correct or look good as a crew and be wrong?  Is this a situational decision?  This can be an interesting and thought provoking question when does optics trump call correctness, when does a crew member jump in and correct a call, even if it looks bad.

PS Calhoun I totally agree with your statement, but I think there are times as an official you have to make a hard decision to bite the bullet knowing this is going to look bad.


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The thing is with that play, your integrity is brought in to question.  So that destroys everything since that's all we have.

[ElvisLives]

This brings up a thought....is it better to look bad as a crew but be correct or look good as a crew and be wrong?  Is this a situational decision?  This can be an interesting and thought provoking question when does optics trump call correctness, when does a crew member jump in and correct a call, even if it looks bad.

PS Calhoun I totally agree with your statement, but I think there are times as an official you have to make a hard decision to bite the bullet knowing this is going to look bad.


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It isn't a case of what's "better," but what is right.  Yeah, we'll look bad sometimes. But, we must get the calls right every time we can.  If that takes a correction, so be it. If there are consequences from that, that is just "part of the deal" for us. Do the right thing.

[CalhounLJ]

i agree with doing the right thing. My mentor in baseball officiating drilled the "the only thing that matters is getting the call right" mantra in my head. The biggest problem I have with the video I posted is that there is absolutely no situation where the official needs to look at the chains to "get the spot right." The spot was on the field of play....

[Ralph Damren]

i agree with doing the right thing. My mentor in baseball officiating drilled the "the only thing that matters is getting the call right" mantra in my head. The biggest problem I have with the video I posted is that there is absolutely no situation where the official needs to look at the chains to "get the spot right." The spot was on the field of play....

That's what signals #12 & 13 are for. I've never felt ashamed for making a correction to make the play right. I have felt ashamed after making a mistake that could have been corrected but wasn't.

[PABJNR]

Anyone think there is a possibility he was turning to see who was talking to him? It looks like one coach might have been talking right behind him.

Which brings up another point, when to wait to address a coach when you need to concentrate on a tight call.  Perhaps, although unlikely, that is what caused him to turn.


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[CalhounLJ]

Nope. Watch it again. He looks at the chains before he ever spots it the first time. Then he takes another look at the chains and spots it again. There is no way he was just distracted. I don't know what was going on in his head, but it wasn't a voice on the sideline..

[Magician]

A good wing official knows before the snap which yard line the runner needs to reach for the LTG. Other than maybe being directly on it, you treat it like the goal line. You are determining if the runner reached it or didn't. If they didn't, mark it 1/2 yard short so if you do a measurement an inaccurate clip/chain doesn't make it a first down. If you feel they did reach the line, mark it on or beyond the line for the same reason. One thing I wondered is if he knew the LTG, felt the runner reached it so killed the clock because he had a first down. When he came back he thought he was a half yard beyond the LTG, but when he peaked back he realized he had gone back too far. If that's the case, the mechanic backfired on him.

[Ralph Damren]

Location of ball when forward progress is stopped. I don’t have a rule (Been a linesman a few times). Now if he extends that ball at the goal line and pulls it back, TD if that ball breaks the plane

Once the ball breaks the plane of the goal line it becomes dead, so what happens next doesn't matter. On a runner tight roping the sideline, the is where it is when he finally steps out. Think of a runner who has passed the line-to-gain reversing his field in an attempt to gain more yardage ,bit is brought down behind the LTG.