Pass interference can be a hard call to make. What one official may call as PI, another official may not call as PI. Does anyone have a good rule of thumb on what they look for in calling PI?

Well, i look for any contact between a potential pass reciever and his defender.

If I see contact, that puts one of the two players at a disadvantage, I throw my flag.

If the ball was not catchable, I am relying on one of the other officials to make me aware of this, because if the ball was clearly not catchable we will pick up the flag.

Uncatchable ball still applies.
 

The catchable pass only applies to NCAA games. At the FED level you still can throw the flag. Now you should use common sense and only throw a flag if the ball is thrown to a certain side of the field.

My guideline is to let contact take place until someone is put at an advantage. If they are chicken fighting with their hands I will just let it go. When one of the players pushes off or gets separation then that is a good time for a flag. The NCAA has a great tape with PI type plays. I would suggest that you probably get that to see what is acceptable. It still can apply to NF rules except for the uncatchable pass plays. This is really a hard rule to talk about.

I agree, I look for an advantage gained. Alos pass has to be to the receiver unless there is another receiver in the general area getting mugged that you obviously have to call something.

Remember if both players are going for the ball it is not a PI unless someone is pushing off at same time.

Re: Uncatchable ball still applies.
 

One thing I forgot to mention, my ruling was based on the Canadian rules, which state that a pass must be catchable for PI to be called.

Whenever I see 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706 79821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081 28481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381 96442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190 91456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412 73724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364 36789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160 94330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185 48074462379962749567351885752724891227938183011949 12, I rule this as PI.

No, wait, that is pi, not PI. Oh d@mn, this new math stuff.........




For the Canadian Ruling, what ref18 said.

[Edited by JugglingReferee on Aug 27th, 2004 at 06:55 PM]

How many decimal places did you get it to?? :D

Ya gotta count 'em!! And no using cutting and pasting into Word, then using the character count feature!

LOL - 500.