Player Down - Rule and Your Philosophy

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Mwanr1

JR: you've been officiating long enough to know that you don't have to explain everything....it's just common sense.

Yabut...I've also been answering complaints about officials long enough to know what I can get away with also. And lying is never a part of that explanation.

If your personal "common sense" happens to go directly against a plainly written rule, how then am I, say as your supervisor, going to be able to explain away your "common sense" when I get one of those irate post-game phone calls or e-mails? Do you really think that a league is going to accept an explanation that it was OK for an official to ignore that plainly written rule because he didn't think it was "fair"?