NFL

Even if you focus most of your attention on horse betting, you might wonder from time to time what an NFL umpire (as opposed to the referee) is supposed to do during a game. The topic of football officiating gained even more national attention than usual last season because of the odyssey that enfolded replacement officials and regular officials. Even those who specialize in mma betting probably encountered this subject in water cooler discussions or in a casual glance at NFL highlight shows from the first month of the 2012 season.

Football fans who faithfully follow the sport know that an NFL contest can feel like any number of online casino games at a given point in time. Why? Umpires seem to make holding calls at random. It is believed that one could call holding on just about any play in the NFL, a contention that is not without merit. This is such an immensely and pervasively physical sport that linemen are held on many plays. In the end, an umpire has to use some discretion when making this commonplace yet critical ruling on the field.

The best way to look at holding calls is if one player gains a clear advantage in the pursuit of the ballcarrier or the ball itself, and is impeded in said pursuit by a jersey grab or any contact that occurs outside the chest or shoulders. Especially in the realm of line-based blocking, an offensive lineman might technically violate the rules regarding holding when he grabs the middle part of a defensive lineman’s jersey, but if he is squared up with the defensive lineman and has him under control, you probably won’t see holding called. If the defensive lineman gets around the offensive lineman but is then pulled from the side or from behind, then holding will be – and should always be – called.

Even if you focus most of your attention on horse betting, you might wonder from time to time why the rules are what they are in various professional team sports. One such example is NFL football, a complicated sport for Europeans and other internationals to grasp. If one were to explain to an outsider what the offside rule is in American football, it would be quite different from the offside rule in international football.

Even those Americans who specialize in mma betting are probably aware of what it means to be offsides in NFL football. Any astute football fan who looks over a 5dimes review with care is someone who knows this rule inside and out.

There is a brief strip of space between the offensive and defensive lines, the two rows of players you see at the start of every non-kickoff play in an NFL game. That strip is called the neutral zone, the area where the ball is snapped to initiate the play. When an offensive player moves into the neutral zone, a "false start" violation is committed. When a defensive player moves into that neutral zone and is still in the neutral zone at the time of the snap, he is offsides. When an offensive player commits a false start penalty, the play is whistled dead before it can proceed. When a defensive player is offsides, the play is usually not whistled dead, giving the offensive team a free play. When the quarterback (the passer of the football) sees that the defense has committed an offside penalty, he will throw the ball deep down the field to see if he can get a big gain of yardage.

There are a few nuances to the offside rule in the NFL. The offense, for one thing, can be offside, but this only happens when a player – usually a wide receiver (a player who lines up on the edge of the field, removed from his offensive linemen) – lines up in the neutral zone and does not correct his position or stance before the snap occurs. As for the defense, if a defensive player moves into the neutral zone and makes contact with an offensive player, the technical term for the violation is called "encroachment," which is a dead-ball penalty. The play is stopped. A defensive player might also jump into the neutral zone and then run past it, all the way to the quarterback in the offense's backfield. When this happens, play is also stopped. The defensive player is offside, but with a special distinction: "unabated to the quarterback." Any "unabated to the quarterback" offside penalty is also a dead-ball foul; the play does not begin.

Even if you focus most of your attention on horse betting, you might wonder from time to time what calls an NFL umpire is supposed to make in a given game. Even those who specialize in mma betting were very likely talking about this subject on Sunday during Super Bowl XLVII between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers.

Football fans who faithfully examine their 5dimes review with care are certainly in position to know what calls the umpire must make in an NFL game. The umpire's position is right behind the defensive line, in that short-middle part of the field on the other side of the scrimmage line. The umpire is therefore the member of the officiating crew who makes the majority of calls pertaining to holding, illegal hands to the face, chop blocks, and all the other blocking-related actions that occur at the line of scrimmage. The umpire is, to put it another way, the main policeman for the offensive and defensive lines. He is the arbiter who is perfectly positioned to see all the combat taking place in the trenches, the brutal yet supremely significant exchanges that determine how much pressure the quarterback faces, and how much room the running back enjoys when he hits the line. It is said that in football, holding can be called on every play, a testament to the amount of grabbing that goes on in each play. The umpire has to be able to make the distinction between a hold and a legal block – few officials have a more important job than the NFL umpire.

Even if you focus most of your attention on horse betting, you might wonder from time to time what the rules are for challenging a call made during an NFL football game. This topic could definitely become important in the weekend's upcoming divisional playoff games. The divisional playoff weekend is considered by many fans and writers to be the best football weekend of the entire year. The NFL community will learn which teams are pretenders, and which teams are ready to contend for a spot in the Super Bowl. The teams from the wild card round either rise to elite status or get exposed; the same principle applies to the top seeds that gained wild-card byes.

The one thing everyone wants – including mma betting experts – is a set of four games that is not marred by bad calls. How can coaches challenge them? Here are the basic rules:

Football fans who faithfully examine their 5dimes review with care are aware that scoring plays are automatically subject to review. Plays in the final two minutes of each half are also subject to automatic review. Coaches can challenge two plays per game. If they think that a reviewable play has been ruled incorrectly, they throw a red flag – which they are given by the officiating crew before the game – to announce their decision. The head of the officiating crew then goes to an off-field monitor to personally review the play. If the head referee denies the challenge and upholds the initial ruling on the field, the team that made the unsuccessful challenge loses a timeout. If the challenge is successful, the team keeps its timeout.

One rule that emerged on the radar screens of many football fans this season – a rule that will likely be changed before the 2013 season – is that if a coach challenges a play that is being reviewed automatically by rule, the ruling on the field stands. This happened in the Thanksgiving Day game between the Houston Texans and the Detroit Lions. Houston scored a touchdown, but since it was a scoring play, the play was being automatically reviewed. Had replay been able to complete the process of the review, the play would have been overturned, because the Houston runner's knee touched the ground after being contacted by a Detroit defender. Yet, when Detroit coach Jim Schwartz threw his red challenge flag, the replay review process stopped. By rule, the on-field ruling of a touchdown was upheld, and Houston got a touchdown it shouldn't have gained. Expect that rule provision – in which a coach's challenge stops the review process – to be discarded in the coming offseason.