The fundamentals can be complicated, and interpretation of the seemingly most simple concepts is, to the frustration of many, completely subjective.
Monday night, the Seattle Seahawks won what is quite possibly the most controversial game in recent professional sports. In the eyes of both a casual and serious observer, the result of the final play was an obvious (ob. vee. uss.) interception by the Packers. But, as you undoubtedly know unless you are not a football person (for shame), or you get your mail under a rock, the ruling on the field was a Seahawks touchdown, and the NFL is standing by their (inept replacement) men.
Touchdown??
The craziest thing about this is that two (apparently blind) replacement officials were within inches of the play in question, and though they were standing no more than five feet apart, one official appears to be waving off the play as incomplete while the other raised his hands indicating a touchdown.
Two men saw the exact same thing, up close, and interpreted the event completely differently. Sounds a lot like religion, if you ask me, and football is, as long as we are bringing faith into this, a Serious Religion with many devotees who worship on Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays, and occasionally Thursdays, with a fervor and dedication I have heard fundamental pastors jealously condemn from the pulpit.
NFL Bible, GAE, circa 2005. Current versions, of course, vary.
The problems of human interpretation of events and relevant texts could never be more vividly displayed. What was “obviously” one way to one is “obviously” a completely different way to others. Using NFL rules and guidelines to interpret events that occur during games is both as wildly speculative and as blatantly cut-and-dried as using the scriptures is to interpret the way people should conduct their lives.
Everything depends on one’s point of view, and furthermore, depending on the authority one places on the Relevant Texts, and the manner with which those texts are interpreted, one’s personal observation, no matter how conclusive, could be rendered completely irrelevant.
So many Final Authorities…
The NFL and Religious Fundamentalism have a lot in common here. By placing the NFL rules above the video evidence, they have made a decision that has been widely criticized by most of the people whose command of the rule-book is less than expert. The league, however, has placed the rule book as their Final Authority in all Matters of Faith and Practice, and has more or less ignored any external evidence completely. Baptists and some other denominations place the Bible in the same position of Authority and often make the same mistakes in ignoring conflicting evidence. In the case of the scriptures, this leads to controversy and confusion over such things as human origins, right and wrong, justice and mercy, and salvation and damnation. In all reality, no one actually knows, of an absolute scientific certainty, which Final Authority is best, and which interpretation of the Final Authority is correct. In both cases, there is an element of faith: faith in the interpreters of the rules, faith in the participants of the game, and faith in the validity and truth of the rules themselves.
Faith can be a heart-breaker.
The nearly unanimous criticism of Monday night’s officials is absolutely warranted, in my view, and the call in that game was an embarrassment, but we as Tuesday morning analysts must remember that even though these are Hamburger B Officials, they probably have studied the game and the rules more thoroughly than the average outraged fan, and though we like to pretend they were recently pulled from their duties at local junior high schools, they probably have a pretty good working knowledge of the game. The trouble is, experts or no, the ruling was flat wrong.
Sometimes adhering to the rules as we understand them in order to preserve the order of things produces the very chaos such devotion sought to prevent. Sometimes the casual observer of football and of faith can see what the experts can not. Sometimes, the rules are wrong. Sometimes, looking at things up close and making a snap judgment turns out wrong.
Fundamentalists devotees of both football and faith could learn something from this one. I just wish the people so deeply invested in both could escape the lesson unhurt.