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The only time the whistle causes the ball to become dead is when it is inadvertent. The whistle is used to acknowledge that the ball is dead in case anyone missed it, but the players are still responsible for knowing if the ball is alive or dead.
On our crew we have no whistle on PAT, but we have an R yelling, "kicks away, kicks away," followed by an U (BJ & L/LJ under post) saying, "plays over, plays over." If and only if someone's not responding to those voices, does the remaining wing have a whistle.
We use similar mechanics on scrimmage plays...its not a basketball court, we don't need 5 whistles a down, and aside from the one to declare the ball ready for play, we don't have to have any.
E.G. dive up the middle, runner with the ball on the ground and no officials can see the ball, so no officials should be blowing their whistle. B dives on the downed runner. Is he excused from the contact by a lack of whistle? I hope not.
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