Forward vs Backward Pass

[ajmc]

With all due respect RichMSN this a a hair you should never try and split. Anytime more than one official is involved in any play, there will be different angles, which can provide different perceptions.

In a close, backwards/forward pass situation any combination of either/both wings and the referee have views of the action, and rarely will those views ever be exactly the same. When one, any one, official judges the pass to be forward and declares it so by signalling, the only practical reaction by any other official viewing the play is to support that judgment.

Conceding to another official's judgment, when there is doubt, happens multiple times throughout every game. When there is an encroachment/false start disagreement by opposite wing officials, one of those officials has to defer to the other. When there is a low buttonhook pass that one official sees as being incomplete, that decision takes precedence over perceptions that might have considered it as complete.

Questioning the incomplete signal after the play, or after the game, is fine, but disagreeing with it, except where there is flagrantly obvious reason to do so, is needlessly undermining your fellow officials credibility, and by association, your own and that of your entire crew.

When an incomplete signal and whistle is given, your partner is announcing his final decision, and from wherever you happen to be on the field, your immediate inclination should be to accept and support his judgment.

If one of the other officials has "punched" back, his signal is actually half of an incomplete signal and should be converted the instant he sees his partner's incomplete signal.

The "Inadvertent Whistle" protocol is designed to provide procedures for handling clear and distinct mistakes, not serve as a means to settle differences of opinion or split hairs.