Something Important

I've finished the stats from last week and will post it in a day or two but wanted to address something that I think is more important: the rising tempers and arguments in our games. Last week there were a number of calls that people disagreed with but I don't want to talk about any of them. It doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong about each call. What matters is how we resolve the calls and that we find a way to do so without it being so personal.

I believe this is the best game of its kind in the country. The level of play is high. The rules allow for a lot of contact but nothing excessive. The stats and game summaries are fun to read even if you couldn't make it out to the game. But I am concerned that the animosity that sometimes exhibits itself is a serious threat to the game.

Over the last several weeks I've heard a number of people making comments like "Oh XXXXX always gets his way," "They never give a call," "XXX is such a baby", etc. This last week, after a lot of this kind of spitting back and forth, two players came way too close to actually taking swings. Again, I'm not interested in blaming people, arguing who started what, etc. All I care about is that a game that I love and that YOU ALL help make great, nearly degenerated into some thing pathetic.

We're better than this and we need to get back to being better. I want to put a couple ideas out there for people to think about and respond to. I ask that you all do not go back and argue about specific calls or events or things people said - that is not productive. I know we can work it out because after things degenerated in the first couple of series last week, we had a really good, competitive game without any more problems - BTW, I loved Yellow's huddle prior to the first play.

1) We do not have a fully lined field - last week we didn't have any lines. Even in the spring when we play on the bigger fields, we don't have a sideline and eventually the football lines are replaced with soccer lines. So we need to establish a bit of "benefit of the doubt" in our calls. If a team needs 3 yards for a 1st and the receiver goes up and turns around before contact and makes the catch, shouldn't we assume that he knew he was supposed to turn around at 3 yards and if we'd had a real line, he could have seen it and made the turn 6 inches later?

On that same point, if a player is running down the sideline without a line on it and is not contacted, can't we assume that he stayed in bounds? I know it's possible that he stepped out but it's really hard to tell unless he steps out on one of the side dots.

2) We have gotten much better about calling penalties right when they happen and loudly so it's clear that people are not just waiting to see what happens and then call it. Having said that, there have been plays where I was held rushing the QB but the QB was 5 yards away when it happened and he made the throw pretty much immediately. So the hold had no impact on the play - what I do in this situation is tell the player he held and needs to watch it and that's it. Now, I'm not saying to ignore holding or pushoffs or whatever when they could have impacted the play. If a DB is still bumping a receiver past 5 yards, he should be called right then because it likely is affecting the play.

3) I like the false start and offsides calls because it means that players are playing with intensity and that's a good thing. Defenders trying to anticipate the snapcount is cool.

4) When we get into a disagreement, having the players nearest to the play talking through what they saw is the best way to resolve it. I don't say anything unless I saw it clearly and was close enough that people will agree that I was in a position to have a legitimate observation. I don't mind helping to resolve disputes about how to apply the rules but I wasn't close by, what I saw doesn't matter.

One of the things I like that we do is that if a player on the team that would "lose" the call says that the play/penalty happened the way the other team says it did, we usually go with that call.

Now, what have we done when we get to a fundamental disagreement on the facts? Usually we call redo. Not my favorite solution, particularly if it erases a TD to takes away a turnover/turnover on downs, but I don't know a better way to resolve it. I'm happy to listen to ideas. Maybe a "challenge" concept where each team gets to "make" a call go their way once per game. This would only apply plays where there is a total disagreement on the play.

5) Here is the last thing I've been thinking about: teams. Do we mix them up enough or do we tend to fall into certain blocks of players? There is good and bad in tending to split into two similar teams each week. The good is that player learn to play together and the level of play should increase. The bad is that it becomes much more "us vs. them" which may contribute to animosity. I'm not sure if this is happening - I'm not seeing it so far in the data but it is something to consider.

That's it for this post. I hope that people will provide constructive suggestions and feedback in the comments. None of what I've written is intended to drive people off. I want all of you to keep playing the game. I just want it to be the same type of game you joined whether it was 8 years ago of 6 weeks ago - great.

NOTE - I'll be opening up discussion on rules changes in another post so save your thoughts about them until then.