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It seems to me that John is not happy because there is a rule and it is not being followed to the letter. He wants (if I understand the content of the thread correctly) simply to have an ironclad writing of the rule so that everyone is on the same level when it comes to evaluating the situation.
My answer to that for John is that holding is clearly defined in the rulebook, but there are a huge amount of times that it happens on the field (and is even seen by the officials) and doesn't get called.
The philosophy is to only call it if there is a 'material restriction' (or something to that effect). If I see one and don't flag it, I try to talk to the player or coach when appropriate to let them know that it wasn't called in this instance, but might be in the future, so they should try to play within the letter of the rule.
I think we see a similar philosophy here about the 9 yards and substitutes.
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