The Whistle-Blower

Television has brought us the catcher cam, the goalie cam and the umpire cam.

It has brought us microphoned baseball managers and NBA coaches.

Sunday afternoon, Fox introduced something heretofore unimaginable in the realm of Reality TV and made-for-TV sports: the commentator-as-official cam.

Fox analyst Matt Millen--a former NFL linebacker and sometimes-sharp critic of officials--worked a little more than a quarter of the exhibition between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New England Patriots wearing a cap mounted with a tiny camera that has been used in some exhibition games.

Other than the ribbing he took from studio analyst Howie Long about those slimming vertical stripes and from commentator John Madden about almost spotting the ball on the wrong hash mark, it was a reasonably serious affair, and Millen seemed competent enough.

And yes, he might cut officials more slack in the future--or at least better understand the nuances of their decisions.

“A lot of times I’ve gotten on them,” Millen said. “If it’s a bad call, I say it’s a bad call.

“I think it cleared up a lot of things for me, just the way you call certain plays, I better understand it.

“They’ll still make mistakes and get some wrong--just like I will.”

That’s how the whole thing started, during an animated conversation last season with Mike Pereira, a supervisor of NFL officials.

“I was getting on him, telling him how bad the officials were, and it turned into, ‘Let’s see if you could do any better,’ ” Millen said.

The NFL liked the idea--as long as Millen committed to attending NFL officiating clinics in Dallas and working some training camp scrimmages--and so did Fox.

Millen, 42, visited a number of teams to ply his new trade--even getting decked by San Francisco 49er receiver Terrell Owens when he didn’t get out of the way on a leaping catch.

He worked the third and part of the fourth quarters Sunday--roughly the point in a typical exhibition when the starters are done for the day and viewers are overtaken by an overwhelming desire to change the channel.

As umpire, his responsibility was to position himself behind the defensive line--almost precisely Millen’s accustomed spot as a linebacker who played in the Super Bowl for the Los Angeles Raiders, the San Francisco 49ers and the Washington Redskins.

His assignment: Concentrate on interior line play for such infractions as false starts or holding--instead of reading the play to make the tackle, as he once did for a living.

“A couple of times No. 27, Rabih Abdullah, came through and it did flash through my mind,” Millen said.

Now that would have been good TV.

Millen threw one hesitant flag for a false start against Tampa Bay--”Feeble,” he said--and kept the flag in his pocket on a borderline holding call, “Thanks, Mr. Official,” the player said, apparently oblivious.

“He was a rookie,” Millen said.

What he learned through his extensive training--”I wanted to do a good job,”--was that the calls are not always as obvious as they seem, even to someone who played the game so well for so long.

“Sometimes you’ll see a hold right in front of a guy, and he won’t throw the flag right away,” Millen said. “You’re thinking, ‘How?’ but there’s so much communication, even some unspoken, with hand signals. They’re going to make sure they agree.

“There are a lot of little things, interpretations. You can read the rule, but you have to see the application.

“Pass interference, I’ve gotten better at. And the quarterback, when his arm is going forward, what’s an incomplete pass and what’s a fumble. And what’s holding and what isn’t holding.

“John Madden, when I first got into this, told me, ‘Know the rules. Stay up on changes.’

“Even with that, there’s a difference between reading a rule and seeing it, what looks right and what you have to think about.

“Watching a tape or a replay is one thing. When you’re an official, or when you’re calling a game [as a broadcaster], you have to know right away.”

So instead of simply a gimmick to hold viewers’ attention the officiating stint actually will enhance Millen’s commentating.

Now when they blow a call, he’ll know exactly why.

But it’s also true: He has friends among the officials now.

When Madden questioned whether referee Bill Carollo was in position to make a call in the fourth quarter after Millen had joined Madden in the booth, Millen took Carollo’s side. “He was on top of it,” Millen protested. “That’s just how good his vision is.”

Madden fairly snorted.

“You’re protecting them!”