The Zebra Report Finale: 2008 Version

FanHouse's resident referee will chime in quasi-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.

Before I go getting all sentimental, we have a few plays to check out for this week.

1. The Bears got jobbed on a spot in their game on a third down. It appeared it should have been about a yard and a half or even two yards to gain for a first down. The spot ended up being about a half yard short of the line to gain. I have no problem with the officials, because in fast motion it appeared the receiver wasn't touched before rolling forward for just over a yard. Plus, due to positioning circumstances, they'd be in a huge hurry to get the exact line. Those are tough. My problem, however, lies in the replay rules. The Bears were not allowed to challenge the spot because the Texans didn't gain a first down.

Now, it's a slippery slope, for sure, on these situations. If you allow challenges to any spot, you run the risk of meaningless spot challenges. On the other hand, fourth and a half yard is a big difference from fourth and two. Perhaps they should allow spot challenges on fourth down or when there are less than five yards to gain for a first down? I don't know. I'm not on the rules committee, I'm just saying it seems ridiculous to have the challenge system in place and not utilize it to correct an impactful -- albeit slight -- error.

In this particular game, it didn't end up mattering because the Texans were stopped and had to kick a field goal -- what they likely would have done if it was moved back to fourth and two -- but in future games we may not be so lucky.

2. Our Adam Gretz asks: On Sunday it appeared that Bruce Gradkowski completed a pass -- don't laugh, IT HAPPENED! -- to some guy, only to have Troy Polamalu knock the ball out of the receivers hands for what appeared to be a fumble. Anthony Smith picked up the ball and returned it for a touchdown, only to have the refs say it wasn't a catch and fumble, but an incomplete pass. Mike Tomlin was furious, looked as if he wanted to challenge it -- he pointed at the replay on the scoreboard -- and was, I'm guessing, told that he could not challenge it. Any idea what's going on here?

Yes I do, sir. The official on the spot made the judgment that it was an incomplete pass and blew his whistle. Once the whistle is blown, you can't review anything after said whistle. It is the do-all-end-all. I've discussed before how difficult it is to blow the whistle at the exact proper time, and this is another case. One might say that the officials should always stay off the whistle, knowing they can fall back on the replay system to call it an incomplete pass, but where would it end then? On every incomplete pass when the receiver gets both hands on the ball, we now have the officials let a mad scramble for the loose ball occur, and then a possible return touchdown for either team? The games would take seven hours. It is what it is. Slight mistakes are going to occur from time to time because the officials are human.

3. Our Josh Alper asks: Kickoff fielded in the end zone, Dolphin returner took one full, clear step out of the end zone but went back in and kneeled for a touchback. The ruling, as explained by the ref, was that the entire ball didn't break the plane of the goal line, thus making it a touchback and not a safety. Why isn't the rule the same as the ball breaking the plane of the goal line on a touchdown and why would it matter since the returner clearly exited the end zone?

I loved this question because it gives me the opportunity to explain something we haven't covered yet. Thanks, Josh. Here goes:

The whole ball has to be out, just like when avoiding a safety on an offensive play. Imagine if they tried to spot the ball with his forward momentum. You can't spot a ball that is touching a goal-line. Since the ball never left, it's a touchback. Had it left and gone back in, safety.

It's tricky with returners leaving the end-zone, so ask yourself: Was there a chance he was scared to get safetied and then kneeled? If he was just scared to have a bad return and get tackled at the 10 yard line, he still has every right to kneel. Even if he's scared to get safetied, he can still kneel if he's never left the end-zone. The bottom line is that the point of no return is when the ball leaves the end-zone completely.

I also want to take this opportunity to reiterate that on any play the ball must be completely out of the end-zone, otherwise it's a safety. Again, think of where the spot would be. If you spot a football with any part of the ball touching the goal-line, well, you screwed up. Royally. A tricky situation could happen if an offense is stopped on the inch line on fourth down. The forward most point of the football is the spot, so when you change sides, ideally you flip the football. In this case, you make a concession to avoid having the ball touch the end-zone.

4. Our Chris Burke asks: Ryan Grant had about a 20-yard run, looked to be tackled and then got up and sprinted 60 more yards to the end zone. Initially, Hochuli called it a touchdown, even though the umpire had come in and started pointing at the ground (signaling Grant down) immediately. They overturned it on a challenge because Grant was definitely down.

But ... is when the whistle blew part of the replay process? Like if they had ruled that Grant hadn't been down, but the umpire had been blowing his whistle, is that something that the replay would correct?

As I said above, the whistle ends the play. Period. In this situation, had the whistle blown, the play would have been over and the Packers would not have been allowed to challenge. I'm guessing that this is why the umpire didn't blow his whistle. He was probably quite sure Grant was down, but not positive. No one else on the crew blew the whistle, and his hand motions don't stop the play.

You might ask, why wouldn't his hand motions or signals stop the play? Because that's not a rule. Players shouldn't be watching officials during play anyway. Their job is to play whistle-to-whistle. Sometimes the play stops itself without a whistle -- like a big huge pile where it's obvious the play is over -- but an official pointing to the ground is never the official stoppage of a play.

If you aren't satisfied with that answer, you -- again -- need to consider that these are human beings officiating, not robots. The players are incredibly fast and things happen in split seconds. In this particular case, as Chris pointed out, the officials got it right.

As I so often say, that is all that really matters.

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This will be the last official Zebra Report of this NFL season. If there are controversial calls in the playoffs -- which hit upon a rules interpretation we have not yet covered -- I'll certainly be around to chime in.

Now, I have a few parting shots.

First of all, some guys on my crew and I always say one day we're gonna start telling an adversarial coach hey, you should have passed that play. Or I'd go with the sweep here. For like five straight plays, until he finally asks some variation of what are you doing? To which we'd reply, what you do to us! That's like the equivalent of when Jerry Seinfeld goes into a hecklers office and starts booing her at her desk. The ultimates "shoe is on the other foot" revenge. Anyway, as I've said before, that's just a joke. We can handle people's complaints. That comes with the territory.

As I stated in the first installment of this series, I know the NFL officials are much better and much more qualified to referee a football game than I am. This puts me in the minority when it comes to the general public because most people sit there behind their computer screens and constantly accuse the officials of being incompetent, always assuming a call was blown when they think they see something. Here is a perfect example from ProFootballTalk. I respect Mike Florio as a writer, but he's obviously never officiated a game. You might see my comment below if you look for "snyder27." This is why I wanted to start this column. People read stuff from established and respected websites and take it as fact, and then they go around regurgitating these opinions, which are all based upon falsities. The initial idea came to me in the aftermath of the first Colts/Jags game, when nearly every Colts fan thought they were jobbed on a pass interference call, when -- in fact -- they were not.

Going into this little exercise, I thought that the most opposition would come from uneducated fans. They'd tell me how stupid I was, because all refs are stupid, etc. And I did get some of that (check comment number two here, for example). That kind of stuff doesn't bother me one bit. I hear plenty of idiocy on Friday nights when fans are screaming about their receiver getting bumped outside five yards and referring to me as a fool because I didn't call illegal contact. I laugh at that, because there is no illegal contact penalty in high school. The commenters who say things like in the above link make me laugh in the same vein.

I was, however, incredibly wrong about where most of my opposition would come from. The people most critical of me? NCAA referees. I have to say, I don't get it. I'm being told that I'm:

1. Not as good as the NFL guys -- which I admit about once every column.
2. That I'm stroking my own ego -- which I most certainly am not.
3. That I'm some punk kid who thinks he knows everything, yet I haven't experienced enough to judge these calls.
4. That I'm giving officials a bad name.

Look, I never strayed from my stance that I was an eighth year high school back judge. I even tweaked the intro after taking advice from the one critical emailer I actually respect. That being said, I'm defending the officials and you have a problem with that? Why? We're just not allowed to talk about anything? That's not good enough for me. This is my opinion as a man, not an official.

It would seem that this "old guard" (every one who has emailed me has at least 25 years experience) disagrees with me on one solitary aspect of life: Accountability.

If someone who had less officiating experience than I did watched a game of mine on film and said I missed a facemask call, I'd watch the play. If I saw what he saw, I'd say, "yep, I did miss that one." I would like to think the NFL guys are cut from the same cloth. If there is a judgment call, anyone can disagree with assessments, because those are opinion-based judgments. I'd like to think that if an official with less experience said I missed a pass interference call, I'd watch the film. If I thought I got the call right, I'd tell him so and explain why without being condescending. If, when watching it back on film, I thought he was right, I'd admit I made a mistake.

I'm the type who is prone to emailing coaches and apologizing for mistakes. I did it once this season. I don't understand this crusty I'm always right mentality. If I'm a punk kid for thinking that, I'll gladly plead guilty on that count. I believe Ed Hochuli was man enough to admit his mistakes this season as well. Yet here we are, with officials of great experience taking serious offense to a column in which I defend officials -- and some of them have the unmitigated audacity to claim I have the ego problem.

To them, I say: You are free to believe whatever you want to believe. I don't care. I'll continue to preach get it right, above all else, and accountability. That's who I am, and it is not exclusive to my officiating persona.

I'll be back with this column next year, and hopefully the NFL Rule Book is made available to me before then, so I can purchase one and cite specific rules when I try to defend the men in stripes.

To those Joe Six-Pack guys out there who think you could do a better job than the officials you see on TV, please go start officiating youth games and attempting to work your way up the ladder. Only after you have worked real games can you accurately judge whether or not this job is easy. Put your money where your mouth is, and you'll find out just how difficult -- and fun! -- it really is.

I've been doing it for 10 years total and I'm still learning. I don't know near as much as I one day will.

Like I said, I'm all about accountability.

Thanks for a fun season of Zebra Report to those loyal readers we have. I bid thee adieu.