Play: The LTG is obvious - such as the inside of the 5 yard stripe. The covering official rules that FP was past the LTG. Upon replay, it is clear that the progress was short of the LTG (because it was short of the 5 yard stripe) but it is not known how much short of the stripe progress was.

Ruling: A 1D will not be awarded. It will be the next down, with the best estimate as determine by the Referee.

When the R voices this, should be not use "just shy of the 5 yard stripe"?

Because this can be an enforcement spot under NFL rules. The reason we don't bag it under NF or NCAA rules is that we won't use this as an enforcemetn spot for anything.

I think the wing official had the call not the U (could be wrong).

The difference is his movement was jerky similar to the action at a snap rather than fluid like is usually done on a shift. There's a fine line but I think he got the call right after watching the replay.

Mike Pereira explains it here:

http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d8043262f

Thanks for the video post. I didn't know the NFL had these available to watch other than on the NFL network. This is great if you miss a show.

I find a couple of things interesting about his explanation of the official with the IW.

Pereira says that the official needs to learn to take his whistle out of this mouth. You'd think an experienced official (and you think one would have to be quite experienced to make it to the NFL) would already do that. After my first IW I never put my whistle back in my mouth and left it hanging. Many others switch to finger whistles just to prevent this. And I don't think there is any way an NFL official made it all the way through the ranks without an IW.

He also said that the official, being his first year out of NCAA, got excited about the play and confused the NCAA with the NFL rule (i.e. down by contact). This explanation seemed to try and mitigate the IW. I think it much more realisitic that the official thought the pass incomplete, and this explanation by Pereira saves face. I'm probably reading into it too much, but that's my gut feeling.

I saw that too, but I just assumed that the NFL had a different signal for Inadvertent Whistle.

If it was a first year offcial, it was the side judge who whistled. The FJ is from my hometown and has been working NFL for at least 4-5 years (and possibly longer).

We all know how horrible we feel when it happens to one of us. I can only imagine how he feels.

After hearing Pereira explaining what happened I think he's telling the truth
As I can hear, there is no doubt on the whistling. It's not like he blew it wrong once and then blew it again to confirm the IW.
Sounded to me like he blew the whistle sure of what he was doing but, unfortunately, he was wrong.
He go mixed up with the different rules

Yeah, the S is in the League in his first season from CUSA.

So you must be from Illinois.

I got to do some work with Doug in a camp over the summer. He's a great guy and I learned a hell of a lot from him and from Tony.

The whole crew was there and the thing that I found really interesting was just the whole air of confidence that every one of them exuded.

What I haven´t seen here is this:
Referee announced that ruling on the field was interception and then IW. However, that whistle wasn´t inadventent, it happened because of bad judgement and it was an incomplete pass call.
Yeah, those guys made it clever and they "internally ruled it over" to IW, but wasn´t it so, that the call was incomplete pass and to change in, there should be a challenge (if that play is challengeable)?
Because next time, on officials make a mistake for example on sideline catch and rules oob catch, there could be also an "IW" on a catch.

Isn't it a Fed mechanic to beanbag the spot on an IW? What about the NFL?

REPLY: If you listen to Pereira's description and if you watch/here the video, you see that the call was not incomplete pass, but rather that the Colts defender was down (ball dead) when he hit the ground after completing the interception. If you watch the video, the S who whistled is coming into the endzone, but he is not signalling incomplete.

Human.

Beings.

Make.

Mistakes.

Definitely bean bag it.

I'm not suggesting that even experience officials don't make mistakes. Experienced officials have had IW's before I'm sure. That isn't what I was driving at.

And I'm also not suggesting the official in question is a poor official. In fact, I'm quite certain he is an excellent official, given that he as progressed to the NFL level.

The point of my post was that I think Pereira wasn't giving a completely honest report. Pereira said "you'll see him officiating now without the whistle in his mouth." He even went into a detail explanation about going through the motion of grabbing the whistle.

How many experienced officials officiate with the whistle in their mouths? In my experience--none. And I don't think the guy here is any different. THAT was my point.