[mikesears]

I sent this this to my own crew and thought I would share our collective thought process.
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We agree with the standpoint that we want to get the call right. But we better not be out there (at least collectively as a crew) if we can't enforce the rules properly. A game is no place to partake in a rules clinic. If a coach talks us into looking at the rule book in one instance, then Katy-bar-the-door if we think we're going to stop it from happening again and again.

Further, how do we convince a coach that we have the ruling right (as agreed upon by the entire crew) when we previously looked at a rule book in the game? That's a credibility issue. Also, why stop with looking at a rule book? Why not go over and look at the TV camera and the replay if someone challenges a fumble call? (I am being a bit facetious here, but where do you draw the line???) Finally, Officials have been vilified (and even occasionally vindicated) in lots of papers and on TV over the years. Most of us have never met a sports writer, radio or TV commentator, or coach who could hold our jock straps when it came to rules knowledge. If we (as a crew) have to explain a call to our supervisor or governing body (and everyone at some point has misapplied a rule), then that's the medicine that goes with the territory. Tom White faced it in the NFL. Last year's officials in the SF-GIA playoff game did too.


One of my crewmates quipped "Bringing a rulebook to an official is like bringing a Bible to Jesus. I just shouldn't happen".

No official would equate himself with Jesus (at least not publicly), but the official is the closest thing to the arbiter of final judgment that can exist in sports. Get the calls right - and be competent enough as a crew to do so on your own without intervention.