PFWA Pool Reporter Josh Weinfuss Interview with Referee Brad Rogers
Detroit Lions vs. Arizona Cardinals
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Question: Just a few questions about the play right at the two-minute warning of the first half. What happened leading into that two-minute warning when the play was called dead?
Rogers: “Mechanically, we have an official that is watching the clock and what he had as a ruling was the clock was at two minutes and the ball was snapped. So, by rule when the clock is at two minutes, it is then dead. We’re not going to let the play get off. We started killing the play by blowing whistles. I know the play started, but when we start blowing the whistle, it shuts it down. Some of the players were still going because they couldn’t hear our whistles apparently – so it looks like there’s part of the action that’s still moving and some of the action is stopping. So, when we start blowing our whistles, it shuts the play down completely.”
Question: Can we expand on the mechanics of that a little bit more? Who’s watching the clock in that situation? And I guess the follow up to that is, how does that differ from a play-clock situation when we see the clock going to zero, often times, the ball still gets snapped?
Rogers: “What we want to do on the game clock is be 100 percent. When it shows two minutes, we stop it. When it shows zero, we stop it. And in respect to what we’re doing here mechanically, the side judge is the one that is responsible for the clock. So physically looking at that and communicating a countdown and letting us know whenever it hits two minutes. When he says, ‘Two minutes,’ we shut it down because we have to also see the ball and hear when the clock is at zero or at two.”
