Zebra Report: Trying to Find the Perfect Time for a Whistle

FanHouse's resident referee will chime in weekly with thoughts on major topics relating to officiating. We call it The Zebra Report. Matt Snyder is a high school official with eight years experience. While this is like a third-year resident critiquing the work of a world-renowned surgeon, it's still better than someone who has never worn the stripes.

Twice during the Monday night game this week, fans were up in arms about when the whistle was blown on a slow-moving pile when the ball-carrier was still on his feet.

This is probably the most difficult judgment an official will ever make. When there is a pile and the guy with the football has not gone down, and he does not show any signs of doing so, the situation becomes tenuous immediately. In every instance like this, the downsides drastically outnumber the upsides.

If you blow the whistle too soon, you may have given one side an advantage. Say the ball-carrier is still moving forward, and would have either broken free from the crowd for a long gain, or fumbled before his forward progress was stopped.

If you blow the whistle too late, you risk injury to anyone in the pile, and take a chance that the defense rips the ball from the offense even though forward progress has been stopped for quite some time. Of course, the defense could also keep driving the offensive player backwards, and then finally release him. Now he's free, and a whistle appears inadvertent.

So the answer is to get the whistle blown at the absolute perfect time. If you've never officiated and think this is easy, you have another thing coming. There are instances where the pile is very, very slowly inching forward. Do you just let the offense keep pushing the pile forward all the way up field? What if a defensive player not in the pile dives in knee-high and takes everyone out?

The best thing for everyone would be for the guy with the ball to just go down, but do you want to tell Cadillac Williams not to keep his feet churning in hopes he'll gain extra yards?

An official's biggest nightmare -- other than seeing a bad injury -- is seeing a ball-carrier break free or the ball come loose almost immediately after a whistle on these amoeba plays.

For every play like Monday night where you think the whistle was blown too soon, you can think of examples like the Bears stripping Edgerrin James in 2006 (in the "they are who we thought they were" game).

A few other things this week:

- As Bruce Ciskie astutely pointed out via email, the illegal contact penalty is definitely becoming the speeding ticket of the NFL. You know, everyone speeds. You just never get a ticket unless a cop catches you. When you do get caught, it's a royal pain in the ass, but you can't really argue with it because you know you violated the law.

Many defensive backs around the league are trying to get away with slight illegal contact, and they can quite frequently because there aren't enough officials out there to see every single move of every single player in pass coverage. Of course, when the defensive backs do get caught, it's often a very costly penalty for their team.

It's quite the funny observation and a great analogy, so I tip my cap to Bruce (even though he's a Packers fan).

- There was a false start called on Jason Campbell in the Sunday night game, and there were a few questions in the live chat about how it's possible for a quarterback to false start. Well, it's very possible. Obviously, the quarterback is allowed to move around -- as Peyton Manning illustrates every down -- but he can do a number of things which would be a false start. Let's say he starts his drop back without the ball, because he thought the snap was coming. False start. Also, though you'll probably never see it called in the NFL, a quarterback can technically be called for a false start for excessive head-bobbing during the snap count when trying to draw the defense off-sides. He'd likely have to break his neck to get it called in the NFL, but in lower levels that's a possible call.

- On the first series of the Bears/Jags game, there was a play that made me thank the lord for the use of instant replay (as a Bears fan). Danieal Manning had intercepted a pass, and taken it down to about the three where he fumbled. The ball went out of bounds at the one. The tricky thing is that as the ball went out of bounds, a Jaguars player had slid into the pylon as the exact same time the ball went out. Judging from the angles the officials had and that it was in fast motion, it's not surprising they thought the ball hit the pylon.

If a fumbled football hits the pylon it's just like they fumbled out of the end-zone. When an offensive team fumbles out of the defensive team's end-zone, it's a touchback to the defense. So, if this actually happened, the Jags would have gotten the football at the 20 yard line.

Thankfully, slow motion replays conclusively showed the football had exited the field at the one yard line, and my Bears scored two plays later. That's why they have replay, and it was used to perfection.

That's all I've got for this week, so I will see you next week.

As always, this was not an all-inclusive list of calls which were whined about by fans. That isn't the aim of Zebra Report.

If you would like a rule or play reviewed (even if it's a local 8th grade game), you may submit one to our mailbox.