Are you ever in a situation where you and another official on the field see the same play and in your judgement there wasn't a penalty but another official throws a flag? As the head referee do you ever tell them "No" and pick up the flag? I've seen a couple of times where a seemingly out of position official has thrown a flag from very far away. Once was a guy on the line calling DPI 20 yards downfield while the downfield official was right there. Another was a back judge calling holding in the backfield on a running play.
Disagreeing with your crew
- Thread starter VAHSFootballFan
- Start date
This is a complex question, so I may have a somewhat lengthy answer. One official can certainly come in and provide information to another official of what they saw and their opinion on the play. They can even come in and pose that the calling official missed a crucial element of the play and should waive off the flag. Ultimately that decision to waive it off comes from the calling official. White hats (the Referee position, we don’t call them head Referees - just Referees) provide guidance by talking through the elements of what took place to make sure it’s a foul or if the R has an opinion on the play, offer it as well.
I would caution against saying an official seemed out of position unless you have training in football officiating mechanics. Sometimes what may seem out of position to the untrained eye is exactly where an official is supposed to be at that moment. If you meant someone was farther away from a specific play than another official, that is perfectly ok for them to still provide input and even throw a flag from a greater distance. There is a misconception in the football community about how close an official is and how that means they should be the best to rule on that play. In a lot of cases, that couldn't be any further from the truth. If the play is too close to you, your field of vision shrinks and you can’t see the entire play. An official who is 10-20 yards farther away has a broad field of vision and can see the entire play much easier than someone less than 5 yards from the play.
If I could teach the football community one thing on this topic it would be this: stop thinking about officiating on a play in terms of distance (how close an official is to the play) and start thinking about angles and a broader field of vision. Think about watching a game on TV - how many camera angles does the production crew pan through before you see what you needed to see on a play? Well one official has only one of those angles with their own eyes, so regardless of distance, a different angle can and often does provide a completely different perspective on any given play. What may seem like an easy foul from one angle may be seen as no foul from another angle.
Especially on DPI’s. The Back Judge, deep wings (the downfield sideline officials - the Field Judge and Side Judge), and short wings (the line of scrimmage officials - Head Linesman and Line Judge) all have equal rights to rule on a pass. You could easily see 3 flags on one DPI (BJ, FJ, and LJ) or on another play 1 flag from the FJ and the BJ or LJ come over and talk them off the flag because they missed something. It’s not about who’s closest to the play - it’s about who has the best angle to provide the best information to get the call right.
TLDR - Yes any official can provide input on a foul/play on the field if they have information. Don’t worry about how far an official is from the play. It is not as important. Angles are more critical than distance and any official can have a better angle on any given play.
I'm going to take a bit of a different tack here. It's frowned on to say that not every one is good at officiating, but that's a fact and I think that's part of the issue the OP wants to know about. I think it's a fair question.
Yes, I might waive off a flag if i KNOW it's a bad flag. The party line is to say that all calls are good and officials need to defend one another. For the most part that's true, but in the interest of honesty, I'm going to say there are occassions when that's not the case and I promise I know better than anyone else in the stadium what the shortcomings migh be. And when there are bad flags, I have a pretty good idea. I won't officiate another guy's game (I have my own job) but I'll be ready for issues to arise. I've worked with guys who make me want to throttle them. For instance, I know how to call holding (I think it really takes 10 years to fully know how to call holding, by the way) and I have roughly 10 holding flags a season. Then some dude has five in the first half???? Something isn't right. So I'm on the alert, as is the rest of the crew, to watch a little more in his area and come togethr to talk about flags. I had a game one night with a guy who was making the whole crew look like idiots. He was just coming up with stuff. And when I trailed a runner into his area and he dropped a flag by two players who barely touched each other, I waived it off.
It's rare that happens because I think the official is blatantly wrong, but it's happened. More likely is this real-life scenario: I was trailing a play into the boundary once when the players, still engaged a yard or so out of bounds, went down and the line judge had a flag unnecessary roughness--a tackle wel out of bounds. However, I could see they were both holding each other and the offensive player tripped, which brought the defender on top of him. We talked and I waived it off. I had important info which, as VAOfficial points out, is often necessary.
Some referees waive off flags for things like unsportsmanlike conduct because they don't think it should be called in a certain situation or the offense doesn't meet their personal definition of USC, but I do not like treading that path.
If an official comes to me to report a foul that happened well away from him, I don't usually have a problem with that, VAOfficial does a great job spelling out many not-so-obvious details of administering a game. Like players, officials have keys. When my son was playing JV, I once suffered through the experience of sitting in the stands. My son's team was flagged for a block in the back by a back judge 30 yards from the block. The blocker who cmmitted the IBB was the back judge's key. He tossed his flag to the spot that was a lot closer to the line judge. Of course, a couple dads went crazy, but the call was made by the guy whose job it was to look at the player committing the foul. The dads lost their minds, cussing and roaring about how bad the official was. It was an embarrassing display. (And that's why I sat by myself at the field house during every other game.)
Yes, I might waive off a flag if i KNOW it's a bad flag. The party line is to say that all calls are good and officials need to defend one another. For the most part that's true, but in the interest of honesty, I'm going to say there are occassions when that's not the case and I promise I know better than anyone else in the stadium what the shortcomings migh be. And when there are bad flags, I have a pretty good idea. I won't officiate another guy's game (I have my own job) but I'll be ready for issues to arise. I've worked with guys who make me want to throttle them. For instance, I know how to call holding (I think it really takes 10 years to fully know how to call holding, by the way) and I have roughly 10 holding flags a season. Then some dude has five in the first half???? Something isn't right. So I'm on the alert, as is the rest of the crew, to watch a little more in his area and come togethr to talk about flags. I had a game one night with a guy who was making the whole crew look like idiots. He was just coming up with stuff. And when I trailed a runner into his area and he dropped a flag by two players who barely touched each other, I waived it off.
It's rare that happens because I think the official is blatantly wrong, but it's happened. More likely is this real-life scenario: I was trailing a play into the boundary once when the players, still engaged a yard or so out of bounds, went down and the line judge had a flag unnecessary roughness--a tackle wel out of bounds. However, I could see they were both holding each other and the offensive player tripped, which brought the defender on top of him. We talked and I waived it off. I had important info which, as VAOfficial points out, is often necessary.
Some referees waive off flags for things like unsportsmanlike conduct because they don't think it should be called in a certain situation or the offense doesn't meet their personal definition of USC, but I do not like treading that path.
If an official comes to me to report a foul that happened well away from him, I don't usually have a problem with that, VAOfficial does a great job spelling out many not-so-obvious details of administering a game. Like players, officials have keys. When my son was playing JV, I once suffered through the experience of sitting in the stands. My son's team was flagged for a block in the back by a back judge 30 yards from the block. The blocker who cmmitted the IBB was the back judge's key. He tossed his flag to the spot that was a lot closer to the line judge. Of course, a couple dads went crazy, but the call was made by the guy whose job it was to look at the player committing the foul. The dads lost their minds, cussing and roaring about how bad the official was. It was an embarrassing display. (And that's why I sat by myself at the field house during every other game.)
