[Mike L]

Practically speaking, on an invalid signal where are you going to attempt to place the spot of the foul? The situation I'm thinking of is when the R is running up to get the short kick and makes an invalid signal. Since I would think you are going to allow him the opportunity to make the signal valid sometime before the catch, you are probably going to hold your flag until the catch. If he never does make it valid, how do you establish the actual spot of the foul, it now being somewhere behind the actual catch? Or will it just become the dead ball spot of the catch for practical purposes.

As for the whistle comments, I'm beginning to think the pendulum is swinging too far the other way by adopting this whistles are not needed and we are approaching a situation as bad as before when whistles were getting blown all the time creating problems. The quote was "whistle as soon as possession is attained". Now then you can make all sorts of comments what you should be careful of here, but there is nothing wrong with that taken as it is. Yes, you better not anticipate the catch, yes you better make sure the catch is made and yes that means you might be a step slow with the whistle. But to say you are not going to blow any whistle to protect the guy and it's up to players to realize what's happening during the chaos of the game of football, especially during the extra chaos of kicking situations, is just asking for a game to get out of hand. The entire idea behind whistle control "rules" is so you are not blowing it when it shouldn't be blown, but I don't think we should be using it as an excuse to not blow it when it is needed and hiding behind some bs like "the players should know when it's dead".