(thanks to waitingfornextyear.com for the image)
Everybody watching Sunday’s game knew the Browns got hosed on that first-down call late in the first half, the one where the measurement showed the Steelers came up short.
The only one who didn’t know was the referee who made the call.
Here’s what that referee, Walt Anderson, had to say in explaining the ruling:
"The ball has to penetrate the plane of the stake. When we set the ball up ready to measure and we bring the chains out, the chains are set beside the football; they're not put down on top of the football. So I get on the side and I'm looking straight in at that angle. So when the stakes go down I'm sighting in between the nose of the football and the stake. So if the nose of the football touches the stake, then it's a first down. It's kind of like a football touching the plane of the goal line. But we don't actually put the stake up against the nose of the ball because of the way the ball is shaped. The chains and the stake are laid beside, so it kind of depends on the angle you might be looking at it from." OK …
He continued, obviously forgetting the advice not to keep talking when things aren’t going well.
Told the TV picture showed the Browns had stopped the sneak, Anderson said (And this comes directly from the official transcript of the pool report provided at the game):
“It depends on which angle you might be looking. I’m looking from straight on so I guess it’s conceivable that’s why I don’t get it back at an angle because it can be deceptive because there’s a little bit of a distance probably in the neighborhood of five or six inches between the actual point of the football and where the stake sets on the ground. If you shot at an angle maybe from back behind the ball it might look like it’s short. If you shot at an angle the other side, it might actually look like it’s further in advance of the stake than what it actually was.”
Glad we cleared that up.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Pat:
This is one of the worst calls I have ever seen. In junior high, yes I am going to my junior high years, but pointing out how a referee got it right. We stopped a team on 4th down. It was close enough to call for the chains. The ball was so close to the stick, the ref actually pulled a credit card out of his pocket to see if there was space between the stick and the ball, there was, we stopped them. But, my point is this is how a referee double checks to see if he got it right.
the browns deserve every bad call they get.
I've always thought chain measurements are incredibly stupid anyway. It's 2009, man. All this wild technology at their disposal, and they're still using $15 worth of parts they picked up at the Home Depot.
It's called a parallax error. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax
I'm not saying that it did or did not happen on this play, but I am certain that a tv still from an undisclosed angle is not enough to prove that the referee made a mistake here.
The referees had a better look than you did, and crying never changes things. The refs called the nose of the ball at the pole. That is enough for a first down.
Take the loss and do better next time.
The ref actually explained the parallax perfectly in layman's terms, so I don't know why Pat could not understand his comments.
I personally believe that…
1) it was a bad spot of the ball by the linesmen in the first place (in the Steeler's favor). The linesman who actually had the best view and was and standing a half a yard short of the marked allowed the other linesman who could not see where the ball was to place the spot up closer to the maker.
2) there should have been more studying happening by the ref's to double and triple check the measurement.
3) how Mangini didn't go ballistic there is beyond me.
If I'm not mistaken, this picture appears to have been taken from behind the ball on the pole's side. Unless you have a photo perpendicular to both the pole and ball, then all of this conversation is just speculation.
First off, congrats on the clever photo, specifically cropped so it doesn't show the angle of the lines on the field. It would suck to torpedo your point before you've had a chance to make it.
"so it kind of depends on the angle you might be looking at it from"
He's saying that an offset max-zoomed camera doesn't offer a better view than the official has with his nose lined up with the ball and the stake.
"because there’s a little bit of a distance, probably in the neighborhood of five or six inches, between the actual point of the football and where the stake sets on the ground"
He means that the stake is set off to one side, not on, on top of, around, or over the ball.
"He continued, obviously forgetting the advice not to keep talking when things aren’t going well."
Give the guy a break. So he didn't have a soliloquy prepared on geometry. He probably assumed that somewhere in the first half of high school someone would cover almost everything you'd need for regular football viewing.
Just click the link I put in my name. 29 seconds on youtube can save you a season's worth of complaints.