Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Goodman
There seem to be 2 issues in the original post, and I'm not sure they're being addressed: pulling, and the pile. Pushing a pile may be legal depending on the details, and pulling another player is sometimes legal too. But I don't see why it's even hard to understand that by "pulling the pile", the official was referring to some illegal use of hands -- in either blocking an opponent, pulling the runner, or interlocked interference -- and it's also clear that for a pile to have been the object, one of those must've occurred. The mere fact that the official didn't specify which, and indeed may not have been able to see which violation it was, doesn't mean it was a bogus call (penalty notwithstanding). When you see someone reach into an opaque cookie jar, even if you can't tell which type of cookie was grabbed, do you have a problem with concluding that a cookie was the object of grasping?
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If this is how you officiate, by inferring something happened but not actually seeing it, you are doing a disservice to officiating. We can only call a penalty that we see with out own eyes. How about a receiver and defender running down field, they are close, but you cannot see that the defender is holding his arm down because you are blocked from the view by his body. You see the receiver does not put up both hands to catch the ball, and he's yelling about it after the play. You know something must have happened (like you know in your example that the cookie was grasped but you did not see it) do you throw a flag? If you cannot see the action that you are going to penalize, you should never throw the flag because you never have see the illegal activity.