Inadvertent Whistle While FG Is In Air

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by jblowery

Just pointing out that in this case there could be worse trouble if you apply the rule correctly.

You cannot base your decisions on the field based on which decision keeps you in less trouble.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by MD Longhorn

You cannot base your decisions on the field based on which decision keeps you in less trouble.

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

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

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.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Rich

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.

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?