The rules should serve the game, not the game the rules.

Game officials can't put themselves in a position to make those decisions on the fly. That's the job of rules makers and administrators.

True, but...so what? It doesn't answer the question of how the situation should be administered. Many actions may also occur because of how IW is ruled, too -- no matter how the rule is written. It just seems the rules makers would want to provide for the likeliest outcomes, rather than less likely ones.

Suppose a game is called early, due to no fault of the administration of the game. Sure, many things could've happened if they'd played on, but doesn't it make more sense to think that the team that was ahead would've stayed ahead, if a result needs to be adjudicated?

Why? Who are the game officials working for (provided they're paid)? To put it another way, why should the rules makers (who are paid by someone else) even care about it, when they're not on the scene? The rules makers do their job to provide a tool for game officials (and ultimately the people playing the game) to use. When the tool's useless, why should it be used?

Why shouldn't game officials discriminate between a ball that was going into the end zone anyway when the whistle was blown (meaning the written IW provision should be ignored), and a ball that would've remained in play?

There's only one reason to have IW provisions: to make sure the players respect the whistle. Otherwise you wouldn't have a whistle, hence no IWs. If they know that nothing they can do after the whistle will affect the play, they have no reason to play on. However, there are situations where it's obvious that factors beyond human control -- in this case the motion of a ball out of players' reach -- would produce a certain outcome. The ball's never going to respect the whistle, so why administer a rule as if it did?

So if we give R an option on any scrimmage kick that has crossed the ENZ, what options are we giving them? Do we give them the option to replay the down or take possession from the dead ball spot (have fun determining where that was)? You could propose awarding possession to R at the end of the kick, but that requires both teams to continue playing after the whistle with R having to move into position to field the kick and K continuing to have to cover the kick in the event the kick is not fielded by R.

Concerning the intent of the rules makers; I don't think their intent is to provide for the likeliest outcome. I think the intent is to arrive at the most equitable outcome as often as possible even if the outcome is less likely than some other outcome. The other component of the rules is that we have something that can be consistently applied. The value of consistency is that an IW is probably going to disadvantage one team or the other in most situations, and I bet the rules makers saw the danger of having officials try to correct a situation they created via the IW by using their own judgement as to what could/should/would have happened.

This is an old thread, but this needs to be highlighted if any officials (especially newer ones) come through and read this thread thinking either team has a choice in this instance of an IW. There is no option on an IW during a legal kick or forward pass, the down must be replayed as CT1 said. (4-2-3-a)

The choice everyone else is speaking of only pertains to a loose ball following a backward pass, fumble, illegal forward pass, or illegal kick. Then the team in last possession may choose to either put the ball in play where possession was lost or replay the down. (4-2-3-b) This is an important distinction, especially for newer officials who may be more susceptible to these situations presenting themselves.