Seahawks and the Law
Are you familiar with the legal concept of desuetude?
According to a leading treatise: "Desuetude [is] the name of a doctrine whereby if a statute is left unenforced long enough, it will no longer regarded by the courts has having any legal effect even though not repealed."
This Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks face off against the New York Giants at Qwest Stadium in Seattle, a rematch of last year's epic overtime battle. You may remember that in last season's game, the deafening crowd noise caused the Giants to commit 11 false start penalties. Coach Holmgren was so pleased, he awarded the game ball to the "12th Man," i.e., the fans in the stadium.
This year, the Giants are so scared that they've apparently complained to the NFL, and because the Giants are the NFL's favorite team -- the NFL league office is located in Manhattan -- the league has promised to "investigate" the crowd noise this Sunday. According to the Seattle Times:
Both the Seahawks and New York Giants have been notified the NFL will be monitoring this weekend's game, according to a league source, and the notice mentioned allegations that artificial noise has been piped into Seattle's stadium.
* * *
The crowd-noise guidelines state the league does not try to restrict spontaneous crowd noise, but the guidelines do mention the rules passed in 1989 to deal with crowd noise that is so loud the opposing team can not hear its signals. A team can lose timeouts or be assessed 5-yard penalties. Those rules resulted from the noise inside the Kingdome — the Seahawks' former stadium — but are rarely enforced now.
Let me go on the record here. After what happened in the Super Bowl, if the referees flag the Seahawks for "excessive noise" this Sunday, there will be riots inside of Qwest, and a zebra will end up dead. So the NFL better hope the officials understand the concept of desuetude -- see, I tie it all back together -- lest they have a riot on Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday.
According to a leading treatise: "Desuetude [is] the name of a doctrine whereby if a statute is left unenforced long enough, it will no longer regarded by the courts has having any legal effect even though not repealed."
This Sunday, the Seattle Seahawks face off against the New York Giants at Qwest Stadium in Seattle, a rematch of last year's epic overtime battle. You may remember that in last season's game, the deafening crowd noise caused the Giants to commit 11 false start penalties. Coach Holmgren was so pleased, he awarded the game ball to the "12th Man," i.e., the fans in the stadium.
This year, the Giants are so scared that they've apparently complained to the NFL, and because the Giants are the NFL's favorite team -- the NFL league office is located in Manhattan -- the league has promised to "investigate" the crowd noise this Sunday. According to the Seattle Times:
Both the Seahawks and New York Giants have been notified the NFL will be monitoring this weekend's game, according to a league source, and the notice mentioned allegations that artificial noise has been piped into Seattle's stadium.
* * *
The crowd-noise guidelines state the league does not try to restrict spontaneous crowd noise, but the guidelines do mention the rules passed in 1989 to deal with crowd noise that is so loud the opposing team can not hear its signals. A team can lose timeouts or be assessed 5-yard penalties. Those rules resulted from the noise inside the Kingdome — the Seahawks' former stadium — but are rarely enforced now.
Let me go on the record here. After what happened in the Super Bowl, if the referees flag the Seahawks for "excessive noise" this Sunday, there will be riots inside of Qwest, and a zebra will end up dead. So the NFL better hope the officials understand the concept of desuetude -- see, I tie it all back together -- lest they have a riot on Sunday. Sunday, bloody Sunday.
posted by Ben at 2:52 PM
1 Comments:
We're going to kill a ZEBRA.
Post a Comment
<< Home