Tough Calls

Atlanta’s Chuck Smith scoops up a fumble by San Francisco’s Terry Kirby and runs 45 yards for a touchdown. The scoreboard clicks off six points for the Falcons, giving them a 20-0 first-half lead in an NFC divisional playoff game, as 70,262 fans inside the Georgia Dome roar.

Then a hush falls over the crowd. There are no flags on the play, but something occurs on the field that is equally halting--an officials’ conference.

They rule that the ball is dead where Kirby fell but that it belongs to the Falcons. The crowd is not as joyous as before but still content. That feeling doesn’t last.

The officials reconvene and decide that Kirby had possession when touched on the ground by the Falcons’ Henri Crockett, thus ending the play. No fumble, 49ers’ ball.

The fans boo the messenger, referee Jerry Markbreit, and don’t quit until halftime, at which point the Falcons are clinging precariously to a 14-10 lead.

If the Falcons hadn’t won, 20-18, Markbreit would be remembered by their fans in this season of the “Dirty Bird” as the dirtiest bird of all.

That would hardly have been a fitting epitaph to his 23-year, 458-game career as an NFL official, especially when, upon further review, you realize that one of the most controversial calls he has ever made also was one of the best.”

“When the runner is on the ground with the ball and he’s touched by an opposing player, no matter how long the runner has been in possession of the ball, he’s down,” Markbreit said last week.

“The fumble in this case occurred after the runner got up and tried to run, but he had no right to do that. The play was over. Our call was correct.”

A satisfied pause later, he added, “Most of them are.”

Officiating has never been easy. During a phone conversation from his Skokie, Ill., home, Markbreit repeated one of his favorite banquet stories about the first college football game ever played, in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers.

“After the game, the losing coach said, ‘That’s the lousiest officiating I’ve ever seen,’ ” Markbreit said, laughing.

But he acknowledged that officiating today is more difficult than ever before, pointing a finger at the technology that created instant replay.

“We make a call at full speed, then you get to see it at slow motion and have it analyzed by the guys in the booth, then by the guys in the studio,” he said.

“The good thing is that it shows how often we get the call right. But it also shows when we get one wrong.”

It was mentioned to Markbreit that there seemed to be more wrong calls this season than ever before, at one point late in the season leading the NFL to reconsider the use of instant replay during the playoffs as a tool for officials.

“No, the officiating is as good as ever,” he said. “If there was a perception that it wasn’t, it was because so many controversial calls came at the end of games.”

Contradicting himself later, though, Markbreit said that officiating has suffered because of high turnover among the 113 officials in recent years. Because of retirements and dismissals, about half have joined the league within the last eight years. Of 16 crews this season, four had first- or second-year referees. The loss of Markbreit, a referee since 1977, will be felt.

“But everyone gets better with experience,” Markbreit said.

“I remember the first NFL game I did in 1976. I was the line judge in Jim Tunney’s crew, and one of my responsibilities was to call for the two-minute warning. I waited eagerly for the clock to count down, then gave my signals.

“Tunney looked at me and said, ‘That was perfect. Now go back to your position and wait until there’s two minutes to go in the second quarter.’ ”

Markbreit, who played freshman football at Illinois but was too small to continue his career with the varsity, spent nine years working as an official in junior varsity, high school and small college games before the Big Ten Conference hired him in 1965. He refereed the 1972 Rose Bowl game, which Stanford won, 13-12, over Michigan.

His most vivid memory of his 11-year Big Ten career, however, was of that season’s Ohio State-Michigan game. Buckeye Coach Woody Hayes was so incensed by one non-call that he raced onto the field and called Markbreit a “little pipsqueak.” When Markbreit threw a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct, Hayes returned to the sideline and tore apart the down markers.

The most famous call of Markbreit’s NFL career was the one he made on the “Immaculate Deception.”

Late in a game in 1978 that Oakland was losing to San Diego, Raider quarterback Ken Stabler dropped back to pass and fumbled. But instead of recovering the ball, fullback Pete Banaszak and tight end Dave Casper combined to nudge it toward the end zone, where Casper fell on it for the winning touchdown.

It was no deception, Markbreit ruled, but merely a heads-up play.

Although San Diego fans had trouble believing it, there was no rule against such tactics. It wasn’t until the ensuing off-season that the NFL adopted the rule that no offensive player can advance a fumbled ball in the last two minutes of a game unless he is the one who fumbled.

Markbreit worked four Super Bowls without incident, except for his first one in 1983. He practiced for hours to make sure he said “coin toss” instead of “toin coss,” then forgot how to tell heads from tails on the ceremonial coin.

He told the Washington Redskins they had won the toss, only to have one of the game’s honorary captains, Elroy Hirsch, correct him.

So no one was more sympathetic when referee Phil Luckett botched a coin toss this season.

Markbreit, who is getting out because his 63-year-old body doesn’t bounce back from Sunday to Sunday as fast as it once did, has been offered a job with the Big Ten in a supervisory role but would rather work in a similar capacity for the NFL.

One suggestion would be to bring back instant replay.

“The few calls that we get wrong, we could correct most of them,” he said.

He also would lift the NFL’s ban against officials speaking with the media during the season.

“It would help if we could explain our calls,” he said.

It did during the Atlanta-San Francisco playoff game, when a league official called Markbreit at halftime and asked for the ruling on the Kirby fumble. After hearing his explanation, most in the media reported it as a correct call.

A notable exception, Markbreit said, was Fox analyst Matt Millen.

“You know Norman Chad, the syndicated columnist?” Markbreit asked. “He wrote, ‘I’ll take Jerry Markbreit’s word over Matt Millen’s any day of the week and twice on Sunday.’ That made me feel good.”

Almost as good as he did several years ago after receiving an autographed copy of Woody Hayes’ book. The coach signed it, “To Jerry Markbreit, a good official, but not always!”

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com

Super Bowl XXXIII

Denver (16-2) vs Atlanta (16-2)

Sunday, Jan. 31 at Miami

3:15 p.m., Channel 11