Superbowl FG blunder

[Roger D. Pannell LTN1-1/D03 226-6893]

>At the end of the first half of the Super Bowl, it was
>mentioned that the referees made a mistake in allowing the
>Bears to kick the field goal. They said that since the Bears
>deliberately tried to stop the clock with 3 seconds to go, there
>should have been 10 seconds run off the clock.
>I dissagree with this.

>...
>

> -I was wondering what other people on the net thought
> about this.
>
> -Carl (maddog) Dettelis

Well when they call a penalty, regardless of whether it is a good call or a
bad call, they have certain rules that they are supposed to abide by to mark
off that penalty. Calling the penalty was not the error, marking off the
penalty was what they did wrong. They called a penalty against the Bears for
deliberately trying to stop the clock with no timeouts left, but then they did
not mark off the penalty according to the NFL rules (i.e. run 10 seconds off
the clock). The ref had not put the ball in play, and it did not look like
even half of either team was ready for the snap. I thought they could have
called any number of penalties; offside on either team, not enough men on the
offensive line, illegal procedure, etc. But the refs made a poor choice and
then choked on it.

-- Roger Pannell

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