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Football Fans and Football Rules

On Sunday, December 16, 2001, the Cleveland Browns played host to the Jacksonville Jaguars. That's nothing new. Except for exhibition games, the Superbowl, and the Pro Bowl, every football game is played at one team's home stadium. It's also nothing new that the National Football League has some highly controversial rules. The game is such an emotionally charged game that there's no way to take the controversy out of the rulebook.

So that set the stage for a demonstration of the ugly side of human nature near the end of this otherwise ordinary game.

Here's the confirmed facts first. Opinions will come later.

1. The Jaguars led with less than two minutes to go in the game, and the Browns had the ball.
2. On 4th and long, a pass was completed for enough gain to get a new 1st down, and it was ruled a completion. The chains were moved. At this point the completion was reviewable, but only if the signal was given by a booth official.
3. Quarterback Tim Couch got his team to reset and snap the ball. He spiked it to stop the clock. No attempt was made by the referees to stop this play. At this point, since the completion play was no longer the previous play, that play was no longer reviewable according to the rules.
4. Play was suspended while the pass was reviewed to see if the receiver came down in bounds or out of bounds with the ball. The fans began to voice their displeasure.
5. The completion was overturned (ruled an incomplete pass), and the ball was awarded to the Jaguars on downs at the spot of the 4th down play. The fans pelted the referees, players, and field with litter and debris (including beer bottles).
6. The officials ordered the field cleared and declared the game over, at 23 seconds left in the 4th quarter.
7. NFL Commissioner Paul Taglibue ordered that the game be resumed immediately and the final seconds played. The players were brought back onto the field, the Jaguars took a knee, and the final seconds ticked away.
8. In a postgame news conference, Browns Coach Carmen Policy defended the actions of the fans, comparing it to games he'd been in where snowballs, ice balls, and other debris were hurled. This was as close as he could get to blaming the officials without facing a fine from the NFL.

Now here's what was said about it.

• Most right-thinking people condemned the fans' behavior, but they also every one of them sympathized with their motivation. The fans clearly recognized a blatant violation of the rules of the game.
• Reporters and commentators pressured Policy to retract and rephrase his defense of the fans.
• Reporters, commentators, and the greater NFL fandom continued to villify the Browns' fans without ever addressing the incident that set them off.

Finally, here's the piece of my mind.

What about the RULES?

Forget about the fans and their unruly behavior for a moment. What we had was a gross violation of the rules of the game, by the very people hired to enforce those rules! A claim was made that technical difficulties interfered and that, no matter how much the booth official tried, the referees couldn't be buzzed to review the play, until after another play. That claim, because of its transient and unwitnessed nature, can never be proven or disproven.

The game has a long-standing tradition of never being delayed or rolled back, no matter what the difficulties. No matter if those difficulties are natural, mechanical, technical, or whatever. The only games I can remember ever being delayed were because of excessive lightning storms, and of course The Day America Still Stood. This tradition is reflected clearly in the spirit of the rules. This tradition, more than anything else, is what made instant replay such a controversy in the first place.

In light of football's tradition of being played no matter how Man or Nature interferes with the game, the officials were completely wrong to allow the violation of the instant replay rules. Technical glitch or no, they should've either reviewed the play before the next one or never reviewed it at all.

There's a reason that rules don't have exceptions, or that exceptions are spelled out within the rules. That reason is this: An impromptu exception outside those defined in the rules is a violation of those rules. If such an exception is allowed to stand, the rules themselves are undermined, and their intended effect completely destroyed. A set of rules that are allowed to be violated is exactly the same as no set of rules at all. In a single word, anarchy. Or chaos.

The game should have proceeded as originally called, even if the call was a bad call or the wrong call, and then the rules reviewed and changed as needed. Never, ever, ever change the rules of a game in the middle of that game. And granting exceptions in violation of the rules is changing the rules.

As for the fans' behavior, anyone with even the slightest insight into mob psychology knew what their reaction would be. Fans know the rules. Even if the mob as a whole doesn't know anything else, the mob knows the rules. When the emotion of the game combines with the awareness of its undermining, the reaction is always going to be a violent display of mass artillery. I don't like it, and I don't support it, but I know enough to know that we can never be rid of this ugly facet of humanity, without taking away everything that makes us human.

The best way to keep this kind of fan violence from happening again isn't to stop selling beer or other alcohol after an arbitrary point in the game. Fans will be fans, drunk or sober. It isn't to condemn or villify coaches, or anyone else for that matter, who expresses sympathy for what the fans feel. The best way to keep this kind of fan violence from happening again is to simply uphold and respect the rules of the game.

If a situation arises where the rules are not being broken, but the fan perception is that they are, get out there in the middle of the field and clarify the rules. The wisest referees know this. They've been in this kind of situation before, where they've had to make a highly controversial call. They defused the situation every time by clarifying the rules, explaining how the rules applied to the situation, and then making the call. And then getting on with the game. That puts the pressure back where it belongs: the much more civilized prospect of adapting the rules of future games to take similar situations into account, either by spelling out a new rule, or by spelling out a new exception to the rules.

"After reviewing the rules of the game, the officials are overturned and the litter on the field stands as thrown. The fans' behavior was ugly and criminal, but in bounds of human nature. First Down: Rulebook!"

(I can always hope...)

December 17, 2001 (C) Don Thornton II
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