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Personally, I think the SI article by Rick Reilly villifying the officials is gratuitous at best. It criticizes the officials for taking a "black and white" look at the rulebook, while Reilly paints the officials in black and white terms without looking at the multitude of safety and liability issues (if he gets hurt, or happens to hurt someone else). There's no doubt in my mind that the goal of the officials was not to prevent an inspirational player from playing, but out of concerns for safety, for they must've forseen the maelstrom of criticism they'd receive for doing so. This crew had the guts to address an issue that other crews obviously didn't.
Reilly also manipulates the facts of the situation, painting the officials as hiding behind, "A rule is a rule," although he never interviewed them (for obvious reasons), and that the crew chief was doing what he was supposed to and simply providing the reference to the rule. The coach and player should have been more prepared and Reilly should be ashamed of bonehead comments like, "Everything was back to normal again last week, Bobby Martin was back playing without shoes and official Dennis Daly and his crew were back reffing, without brains." Reilly should put on a striped shirt one time and try it before leveling pius criticims.
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