We’ve talked about this before: in sports bad calls are a part of the game. No one likes to see it, but in football, for example, there are many missed calls – holding by linemen, illegal blocks, etc. Still, no one likes to see a missed call cost a team the game, which is what happened in New Orleans on Sunday. In tennis, when there is an obvious missed call, it is not uncommon for the player who benefited to deliberately lose the next point to make things fair. What if the Rams coach had thought, “wow, that should have been a first down for them. I am going to have my players go deliberately off sides, so that the Saints can get a first down.” (twice if necessary, not sure of yardage necessary). Would you do that? Would that be the right thing to do? Or, do we just accept that there are such things as bad bounces and bad calls? What do we mean by “the spirit and the letter” of the rule? Does that matter here?
Saints, Rams, Calls and the Code
January 22, 2019
