Get Well-Read on the Red Zone

from MHSAA-Referee Magazine-September 2023

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By Jon Bible

Officiating can be more difficult when team A is inside team B’s 20 yardline, or what is commonly referred to as the red zone. Not only is there a greater chance of a scoring play or touchback, but the area is more compressed the closer team A gets to the goalline. That can make monitoring what the players do harder, especially if the crew is smaller. What follows are some topics crews need to think about and, ideally, cover in their pregame. Since not all crew members will always be able to get to the game site early enough, that meeting may not be as detailed as it should be. But because red zone officiating may affect the outcome of the contest, it needs to command the crew’s attention. Mechanics won’t be addressed in great detail because there are too many variables depending on crew size.

First, two general propositions. Because 22 players may be darting around in close proximity, especially on pass plays, we need to stay still longer so we can see more. Seeing more and processing it better the less our eyes bounce around is a truism that applies all over the field, but especially in the red zone. We must also know our responsibilities and carry them out because we can’t expect as much help from crewmates as we can outside the red zone. Everyone has his or her own chaos to manage.

With at most 30 yards within which to operate (red zone plus end zone) — less as team A approaches the goalline — receivers tend to run more crossing patterns, passes are often shorter and quicker and there’s a greater likelihood of receivers and defenders contacting each other. It’s hard enough for us to decide whether such contact is legal when players are more spread out, but it’s especially challenging in the red zone. It’s particularly tough to rule on bangbang plays in which contact occurs just as the pass arrives.

Given all of that, line of scrimmage and any deep officials must be on the same page in terms of who’s watching which players and zones. Whatever happens, we need to try to be sure we’ve got at least one set of eyes on it.

We must know whether a first down can be made short of the goalline so we can properly cover the play if a runner is downed there. If the crew has deep sideline officials, they must coordinate with line of scrimmage officials so they’re not stepping on each other or, worse, both backing off because they think the other will cover the play. Assuming it’s in their mechanics, line of scrimmage officials must know when to release to the goalline without sacrificing their ability to rule on whether a pass is forward or backward or is first touched beyond or behind the line of scrimmage.

On goalline plays, officials must be aware of the possibility of “double action.” As seen in the PlayPic, that occurs when a runner’s arm, with the ball in his possession, falls across the line, when in reality it was up with the ball short of the line when a body part was down. Officials covering those plays must also be thinking about whether the ball broke the goalline plane in the runner’s possession before it became loose or a body part was down, whether the runner got the ball over or inside the pylon — if that’s necessary for a score or is entitled to the goalline extended if it didn’t — and where to spot the ball if the runner is down short of the line or goes out of bounds.

The closer team A gets to the goalline, the more likely it is rules regarding which team is responsible for a loose ball being in the end zone, and what should happen depending on who does or doesn’t recover it or it goes out of the end zone, will come into play. So the officials must be on top of them as well as who’s ruling on which aspect of the play.

If there’s a pileup at the goalline, is there some way for the umpire to unobtrusively signal to the line of scrimmage officials that he sees the runner with the ball in the end zone?

In days gone by, the umpire grabbed the lanyard or tugged the shirt if using a finger whistle. It was then up to the line of scrimmage officials to decide whether the runner was down earlier or scored. Many associations frown on the “secret signal” these days.

In an NCAA game, on a missed field goal, the crew must know whether team R will snap on or outside the 20 yardline. If team A is backed up on its own goalline, the crew must know who should be looking where if a potential safety occurs. If time is an issue, we must be alert to whether a coach is trying to call a timeout, which is harder when we’re farther away from the team area.

Penalty enforcement in the red zone may be half the distance to the goalline instead of the usual yardage. That can be easy to screw up if we’re not thinking. In some cases we must know if a foul occurred in the end zone or field of play. And if there’s a previous spot foul or incomplete pass, it’s even more important than it is outside the zone to know where the ball was snapped because the closer team A gets to the uprights, the more the difference in angle may matter if we don’t spot the ball correctly and there’s a field goal attempt.

Finally, it’s bad enough to miss a foul or make a phantom call outside the red zone, but it’s worse (for example) to erroneously negate a touchdown due to a phantom holding call or allow one when we don’t see a guard drag a defender down at the point of attack. And for sure, don’t change your foul-worthiness standards in the red zone, i.e., by calling holding at the eight yardline for action that you’ve been allowing at midfield, or late in the fourth quarter when you’ve ignored it up until then.