Does This Blog Make Sense? Measure It!

By Hal Maas

'Tis the season to beat point spreads, fa, la, la, la, laaaaaah, la, laah, laaah, laaaaaa".

So what say we rate the top three craziest things you find in a football game, ranking just ahead of offsetting penalties (who exactly is being punished by THAT?) and only putting certain plays up for replay review (hey, they're all important to the outcome. You want the game called perfectly, don't you?)

So let's hit paydirt and spike the ball on the three biggies:

(1) The measurement.
(2) The measurement.
(3) The measurement.

From the NFL down to the nine-year-olds I was watching play a few weeks ago, it is consistent, and is maybe the most thrilling moment you’ll find in a football game. A ball carrier falls to the turf, the ball cradled in the crook of his arm as he somersaults forward from the 28 to the 30 yard line.

Did his knee touch the ground at the 28, 29 – or a half-yard in-between?

The official, --probably a high school science teacher who loves football and needs to earn a few extra bucks and lose a few extra pounds – runs up, head bobbing, eyes almost focused on the 28 yard line. He confidently, but arbitrarily, places the ball a half-inch short of the chalk mark that is the 28 yard line.

A half-inch short. No doubt in his mind that’s where it goes. He saw it with his own 20/20 eye--…. well, maybe more like 20/50...eyesight.

The referee –- a lawyer with a pile of personal injury cases on his desk to review Monday morning and a wife who’s been after him to fix the furnace for weeks – frantically signals time-out and points to the sidelines where the fellows on the “chain gang” are standing. The fellow at the front has his yard marker firmly planted squarely on the 28 yard line along that sideline.

So, they come out ever so carefully…the two guys linked by a ten-yard-long chain, holding the crowd’s collective heart hostage for a few seconds until they place their respective yard markers into the ground.

First down, or short by an inch?

The ref holds…his…breath…and…
deliberately…places…the…lead.....yard…marker…down…and…

(PAUSE)

It’s one inch short!

OMG! What excitement! The heartbreak, the chills, the spills!

NASA has what’s called the Space Linear Mass Measurement Device (SLAMMD) designed to provide an accurate means of determining the on-orbit mass of humans between the 5th percentile Japanese female and the 95th percentile American male. That, I’m quite sure, is not nearly as precise as a chain gang measuring for a first down.

So I hope that the system of measuring for a first down doesn’t get SLAMMD.

It is a moment of heart-stopping, palm-twisting, sweat-draining, breath-gulping, toe-curling excitement.

Just one thing: Why didn’t they just ask the official with the 20/50 eyesight? He knew!