The Official Forum - Enforcement on the punt return that never was

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichMSN (Post 790073)

Sorry, but I don't believe in throwing a flag later in a play when a player who was held "becomes relevant." In your play with the sweep, a hold that happened 5-6 seconds ago wasn't relevant when it originally happened and I'd assume that after that much time the B player is probably back in the play. I still wouldn't have thrown the flag. The only time I'll throw a flag later is when I need additional information from another official, such as IG.

And we will throw it to make sure that a penalty on B is offset. But it still has to be a foul. The minor hold on the left end when the play goes the other way isn't going to be flagged, cause it's not a foul -- it's not at the point of attack.

But a lineman holding when the QB gets sacked is still a foul -- it's just one you've decided after the fact "didn't matter after all" and should get picked up. My crew isn't picking that up for 2 reasons -- (1) The defense can decline it if they wish and (2) if there is another foul on the defense, it's penalizing the defense for picking up a flag for a legitimate foul on the offense.

For me this flag only gets picked up if the calling official decides he should have passed on it. As the R I'm not going to ask him to pick it up on the field. I will have a talk with him though because he probably threw his flag too quickly.

Holding is an advantage/disadvantage foul so if B70 is held in the middle while B65 is making the tackle 5 yards behind the LOS, A gained no advantage with the hold. If the hold happened in the same place and the QB ends up scrambling and 4-5 seconds later gets tackled for a 5-yard loss then you have a different situation. Let the play go for a second or two (say "it's a foul, it's a foul, it's a foul" before throwing your flag) to see what immediately happens.