Decisions Decisions

“Don’t give the referee a chance to blow a call.”
I’ve used that line over and over as a youth sports coach. And I didn’t make it up, I learned it from one of my coaches – probably all of them! It’s a sentiment that is widely used at all levels of athletics and means slightly different things in different sports. In soccer it means that if you make a slide tackle near the penalty area you might be giving the referee a chance to reward a falling opponent with an undeserved penalty kick. In football, it can mean that if you have a hand on a receiver, you might get called for pass interference…or it might mean that if you try to make a catch instead of knocking the ball down, you might give the receiver enough time to make it look like he caught the ball with you!
That’s what the Green Bay defensive back, M.D. Jennings, did Monday night. He made a poor decision that kept the play alive just long enough to let Golden Tate force the referee to make a split-second judgment call. That was his mistake, made at a critical moment, that contributed to his team losing the game.

“Force the referee to make a decision.”
That’s another line used by coaches on the other side of the ball. It represents the understanding that sports are judged by flawed human beings who may occasionally make a mistake in your favor. It’s as much a part of any sport as the field itself! It’s why offensive linemen hold and hope it doesn’t get called. It’s why basketball players flop. Why batters crowd the strike zone. It’s why soccer players claim every throw-in as their own. It’s not always pretty – or honest…but it’s a part of every game, every win, and every loss.
That’s what Golden Tate, Seattle Seahawks wide receiver, did when he snuck his left hand between Jennings' outstretched arms, and then wrapped his right arm around the ball as he and Jennings fell to the ground. He got two hands on the ball just long enough to force the referee to make a decision. Two hands, by the way, not just the one that everyone on TV is claiming. His left hand is between the ball and Jennings’ chest and his right is around the ball on the outside. It was just enough of a good decision and a just enough of a good play, at a critical moment, to help his team win.

Now, I’ll admit I don’t think the decision made by the referee was correct. But I also don’t think the decision not to call Tate for pass interference was correct. Nor was the decision not to call pass interference against Green Bay just a couple calls earlier, which would have put Seattle into better scoring position with a first down. There were poor decisions by the referees all night long. Many benefited Green Bay, and many Seattle. I can't change any of them. Regular referees and replacement referees are pushed to make bad calls throughout every NFL game, and we live with the results.

And when I coach, when I lose a game because of a close call in a critical moment, its my job to stop my own complaining, turn to my team, and tell them that if they really deserved to win, than they shouldn’t have left it up to the referee to make a poor decision. When a game is left in doubt until it comes down to that single moment, than both teams deserve to win, and both teams deserve to lose…and we can’t complain about being on the wrong side.

We can’t complain when one player makes a poor decision, and another player make a good one.

(There’s a lesson in there too about sports and life being inherently uncontrollable, and learning to give yourself a cushion and avoid narrow margins; because life can seem to conspire against you, sometimes to the other guy's benefit – that’s why you’re not supposed to wait to start writing that paper until the night before, why you’re supposed to go to the airport early, and other clichés like that.)

Post script
What really bothers me about the reaction to the end of this particular game is the sentiment that I hear in the comments being made: that Green Bay had a greater right to win this game than Seattle. That somehow they were entitled to win it…as the team with the more rich history, the bigger name stars, or the greater potential. For some reason I feel this assumption that Green bay deserves to be 2-1 and Seattle doesn’t. The feeling being expressed is not simply that they could, or even should have won, but that they were entitled to win and it was stolen from them! No team, regardless of their history, fan base, or potential is entitled to anything except a chance to play. Seattle learned that in 1998, and was reminded of it again in 2005.

Post post script
The rule is ‘simultaneous catch’ not ‘equal possession.’ Meaning, the fact that Jennings may have had MORE of the ball than Tate is not relevant, as long as Tate had the ball ALSO (which he did, with two hands). What is relevant is that Jennings seems to have had the ball FIRST, and Tate got hold of it after – which is not simultaneous!