"Protocol" for chain measurements

[Bryan]

Watching Bears-Packers last night, and saw something (yet again) that made me wonder about the officiating....even aside from Carl Cheffers watching a replay of DJ letting a pass bounce of his chestplate into the ground and then into his hands, and then ruling the play "completed pass".

So, Justin Fields and the Bears do the dumb tush push play, it doesn't look like Fields makes any progress, and the officials give Fields a very generous spot. The Packers think its short, the chains are brought out....and Cheffers measures the spot like 2 feet away from where the ball is on the ground. It still looks short on TV, the Packers start signaling that they stopped the Bears on 4th down....and Cheffers signals first down. HUH?

Was there any point to Cheffers not simply putting the first down marker right up against the football? Isn't that the usual protocol? I've never seen anything like this, the broadcast throws it to Gene Steratore, and Steratore makes some joke about how idiotic he is instead of actually responding to what everyone just saw. Weird.

[Brian wolf]

The Melton catch looked like a TD to me. He gathers it against his knees before his feet go out of bounds. Bad call

[GameBeforeTheMoney]

This is one area that I've always doubted that there's any way to get complete accuracy.

The ball gets spotted - which itself is ambiguous much of the time. Then you have two people running onto the field with the chains - okay, is there really a way to make sure those markers are in the exact spot they should be? What if the person placing the marker 10 yards back is an inch or two off? There is just a lot of room for error. And as you point out, there's clearly no exact place to place the chains in terms of the proximity to the ball. Sometimes the chains are almost touching the football. Sometimes they are a foot away or more. And if the officials aren't perfectly lined up with each other, that 10-yard chain is going to be off by a fraction of an inch or more. And sometimes that's what it comes down to.

I don't know what might be a better way to spot/measure, but in my whole time watching football since the late 70s, I don't remember any kind of move for improvement in measurements or any sort of creating an exact protocol for what you described. Sure, they added replay, but there are a lot of times when that differs from the spot. They have the camera line up with the pylon - and that has improved some calls. But then there are times when the guy looks short of the pylon or gets past it and the still rule the first down the opposite way. Touchdowns tend to be more exact - but first downs, that's another story.

[Brian wolf]

Chains have to get it right, crews have to get it right and coaches have to demand measurements and quit lazily relying upon unofficial television lines. The officials seem to mark where they want and declare first downs that might not be so. I know we have covered this ground before, but coaches and officials need to keep the chain crews on their toes and get the measurements better ...

[Throwin_Samoan]

Former official here: It is, strictly speaking, impossible to get a spot accurate from 20-25 yards away in a mass of bodies. Any time someone gets or misses a first down by inches, it's within the margin of error and you just hope they even out over time. Because, try as you might, unless a series starts on a yard line (like the 20) and there's no need for a measurement, there's going to be tiny errors that add up. I was a linesman, and maybe you get the exact spot from your position and maybe it's slightly off. Maybe the chain gang gets that back stick exactly right, maybe it's slightly off. Maybe the clip is just a skosh off (the clip is how you make sure the chains stay in the same relative position from sideline to the middle of the field). Those tiny errors combined with the fact that human eyes and brains can only do so much so quickly mean until there's a technological way to measure exactly, we're left with the way it's been done for 100+ years. You gotta know that going in, that there's just no way a spot is 100% accurate.

But as for doing the measurement well to the side of the ball's position, you're right, I've never seen that. Our mechanics were always to do it right next to the ball.