New Orleans/Denver

[bisonlj]

Originally Posted by PSU213

I was always of the thought that offsides/encroachment (depending on the level) is always called when a player is in the NZ, reguardless of ad/disad.

I think the gray area here is how much of his body is in the NZ. If a NT puts his hand up and it is technically in the NZ, do you flag it? Probably not. If a DB is barely in the NZ out wide while head up with a WR, do you flag it? Probably not? In many of these cases, you ask the guilty players to make sure they stay back and prevent a penalty in the future. If it blatantly continues then you flag it.

I've also had situations where teams were constantly fidgeting, lining up a little too close and no amount of talking was going to make a difference. It wasn't a major issue and rather than start flagging it you just live with it as long as it wasn't providing the defense with a definite advantage (more common at the lower levels).

I've always understood the NFL is much less lenient with these types of things (slight flinches by the OL result in false starts much more than at the HS level) so I'm surprised this was not flagged. Again, we don't know what transpired on the field in the game prior to this that could have affected this official's judgement on the play.