Quote:
Originally Posted by Bullycon
I'm a second year official myself. I've never held back from throwing a flag because of someone yelling for it. In fact, I've sometimes even found it helpful. I've found in my second year one of my biggest problems on the field is not having the confidence to throw the flag. Sometimes, a coach or fan yelling is enough to trigger me into thinking, "Yes, that was a foul. Yes, I do need to throw the flag." Other times, a flag from another official is a trigger.
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Be careful here. "Me too" or "Copycat" flags do not look good and are usually transparent and can make the crew look bad. That is, if the first official was wrong, now we are both wrong because of the "me too" flag.
Call what you see and don't let outside factors influence you. If you have a foul, throw the flag after all necessary considerations (point-of-attack, advantage/disadvantage, etc). If another official happens to throw the flag for the same foul, that is great, but you never need to see his flag to throw yours.
If you think there was a foul but are not 110% sure, don't throw the flag. Phantom flags are worse than not throwing the flag at all.
Also, coaches and fans are biased. All contact is DPI if they are on offense or OPI if they are on defense. They are the last people who should ever influence whether or not we throw the flag.