Kerb Hohl wrote:I get the spirit of the rule and I've never been one of those people to ask "why does this rule exist?" because in many cases, the rule exists for a very obvious reason. The rule should exist and be called whenever fit.
In this case, Wright batting the ball meant nothing in a vacuum (assuming this penalty didn't exist). It's like a holding penalty at the 50 yard-line as a guy is crossing the goal-line. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point: that game was over. The ball was going to bounce OOB or Wright could have just dove towards the ball, because at worst, he "accidentally" knocks the ball OOB for a touchback.
If the idea of a penalty is to punish a team for gaining an advantage...there was really no advantage gained here. Of course, that could be said about plenty of penalties called, which is not why I'm arguing this in general...but this ref is sitting in Seattle and this penalty is rarely called/used and is a complete "judgment" call anyways. It's never possible to actually prove somebody's intent anyways.
I'd be more ok with the ref not calling the penalty if say a few players were diving on the ground for the ball and Wright's hand pushed the ball out of bounds in a manner which was likely on purpose, but at least some slight argument could be made that it was on accident.
In this case, Wright was standing all alone with nobody near him and he without any question pushed the ball out of bounds on purpose, So your whole spirit of the rule or his doing this didn't change the outcome of the game goes out the window for me.
In an earlier post, you tried making some basketball analogies of refs usually not wanting to decide a key game late with a call.
If a player takes 3 1/2 steps on a last second fast break layup with nobody around him in a tie game, then fine don't call it even if technically that's a travel. If he takes six steps though with everyone watching, it has to be called.
If a last second jumper likely won't go in and a big man swats it anyways at the rim in what technically could be called a goaltending, i can accept not calling it. If the goaltending though is so blatantly obvious, it has to be called, regardless if the shot had little chance of going in.
What Wright did was so blatant and all by himself with the ref staring right at the act, i simply have a hard time believing him when he said after the game that he thought it was inadvertent. He had to perfect of a view to believe that, which is why i think he lied in his explanation after the fact to cover up for whatever made him not throw the flag, be it he forgot the rule at that exact moment or just froze up. He couldn't say that was the case if it was.