Rules are like bones

I was a big fan of pro wrestling when I was a kid. I mean, as a young boy and therefore angry and destructive, what's not to like about picking up a metal chair and smacking some guy in the noggin with it? And the theatrics? The entry music, the wardrobe, the pyrotechnics. How is a boy supposed to resist?

Inevitably, some villain dude would stand in front of a microphone and explain, in his villainous tones and logic, how rules and bones were made to be broken. Grr, yeah! Except, no, you know–I mean, like sort of the opposite is true. In my extensive–oh so extensive–experience with broken bones, I find the broken bone is very often accompanied by mind-blistering pain and several weeks of utter inactivity to the injured area. That tends to suggest to me that, in fact, bones are very much made to remain intact.

So I assume the same is true for rules. And here is my rules confession: I am a rules dork. I have managed and interpreted rules of different types on a number of different occasions in my professional life. I know what the rules are, how they are worded and how officials are taught to interpret rules. As such, when I watch sports on TV and yell, "that's holding," what I'm really thinking is, "according to Rule 3, chapter 2, paragraph 1, line B, that's holding!" And the announcers try to buffer things, diffuse the situation–looks like the Steelers might have gotten away with holding, they'll say. Indeed, it is often very difficult to see the one and only thing you are looking for when it's 15 feet from where you are standing.

But I understand that. There's a lot of chaos on a football field. I get that officials can't see everything. But the announcers always go too far. OK, so they missed one. It happens. But then the announcers at some point will chime in, after a team or teams "might have gotten away with one" several times in a game with, "looks like they're really letting them play out there." What? No! Their job isn't to 'let them play out there.'  Their job is to enforce rules violations. They can 'play out there' without officials. The whole point of them being there is to enforce the rules.

"Well, the Seahawks," one announcer claimed, "are gonna keep doing that because it's not likely the officials are going to call it every time..." What the... Why not? It's against the rules–holding, pass interference, whatever–it's against the rules. You gain an advantage by doing it, which is why it's against the rules. Not once. Always. If you hold on the first play of the game, the second play, the third play and each of the first forty plays and the officials see it, their job is to call it–not five times, not eight, not twelve but 40 times.

And the excuses for not doing it that way are stupid. We wouldn't live in society that way. Well, I don't want to arrest the guy for driving drunk every single time...it bogs things down and drags the game out. Try this: don't hold. That'll speed the game up.

They're playing this like a playoff game, an announcer said. They're letting a lot of this stuff go. No! You can't. It's your job to not let it go. And in the playoffs? Playoffs, don't talk about playoffs. You kidding me? Playoffs? That's when it's the MOST important to see everything and call everything. You're trying to crown a champion, the best in the league, the most talented, the team that can execute best, not a team that can get caught the least breaking the rule meant to instill fairness into the game. 

Because this is what you get under those circumstances: "Wow, Steve Smith just got clotheslined going over the middle and no call." Amazing. And don't get me started on the word clothesline in games involving the New Orleans Saints...