Horsecollar foul

[Rich]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I do not have a whole lot of faith in what coaches say another official or crew said to them. They often do not understand the basic rule themselves and when an official explains something to them they often want to debate or question what they are being told.

I can how the wording with the "pads" can be misinterpreted by a coach that does not understand the rules themselves. I am not so sure that this is only on the official. And since the rule reads the way it does this seems like semantics of what this foul is.

Peace

Except, Jeff, I believe the coach. Why? I heard other officials argue this at association meetings and at the state rules meeting where the interpreter said very clearly the spirit and intent of the rule as we are to enforce it.

Around here I see a lot of games played with less than 5 penalties total. I'm guessing those fouls are all false start / encorachment fouls the crew CAN'T pass on. These crews have the attitude that the best game is the game played where the flags stay firmly in the pants. I've never concerned myself with that. We talk about having a good penalty filter and knowing how we're going to interpret certain fouls (holding, block in the back, etc.) but I'm not concerned if we have 20 flags in a game and they are all well supported by film and philosophy.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

Except, Jeff, I believe the coach. Why? I heard other officials argue this at association meetings and at the state rules meeting where the interpreter said very clearly the spirit and intent of the rule as we are to enforce it.

Around here I see a lot of games played with less than 5 penalties total. I'm guessing those fouls are all false start / encorachment fouls the crew CAN'T pass on. These crews have the attitude that the best game is the game played where the flags stay firmly in the pants. I've never concerned myself with that. We talk about having a good penalty filter and knowing how we're going to interpret certain fouls (holding, block in the back, etc.) but I'm not concerned if we have 20 flags in a game and they are all well supported by film and philosophy.

I do not completely disagree with what you are saying. I just do not spend a lot of personal time or concern with what another official told a coach the week before. It is not in the game that we are calling, so what someone else told you, is not something I can honestly defend. And even if the coach is right about what he was told, why is he not reading the rule for himself so that he knows he was told the right things?

I read this board all the time and read people say things that do not apply to the rules or use wording that is not exactly perfect with the rule. I do not take their word for it, I look up the wording myself to confirm what I might not be sure about. The question I have is why do coaches just take our word for something no matter what we tell them about rules? And this is not just a football question it seems to happen in all sports.

That being said officials are like a lot of people. They do not call things they completely understand only to find out later they are wrong if brought to their attention. Or they do not have the courage to just call what the rule is. It sounds to me Rich like the issues you guys are having up there is another issue if only 5 penalties are being called and all of them are pre-snap fouls like a false start and encroachment. In my area those officials are not seen as guys that really know what they are doing if the only thing they are worried about is a number of penalties they call in a particular game. We do not tell players or coaches to violate the rules; we just penalize it when it happens.

Peace