Is the Ball Dead When the Official Signals But Doesn't Blow His Whistle?

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Any sort of "dead ball" signal by an official is an expression by that official of his judgment that the ball is already dead. Why should that judgment be allowed to be over-ruled? Otherwise, why give all the officials whistles?

This one is not about one official overruling another. This official obviously had an "OH SH!+" moment (just like any normal IW moment), stopped his signal and hoped nobody noticed. And strangely no one on site did.

The only counter-argument I could see to this one is that "Stop the clock" is to be taken as a signal to the timekeeper only, not the players, and in case the ball wasn't really dead the error can be corrected by taking some time off the clock after the error is discovered. In that case, the official can always blow a whistle if he really wants to kill the ball.

There's no need for logic, argument, or counter-argument here. It's written into the IW rule rather explicitly.