[jonathan lall]

Personally I'm not sure I care for it, though I have mixed feelings. Sure, it's cool theatrics, but as in soccer it potentially penalizes the teams for separate and unrelated infractions rather than an MO of a certain act (the deterrence of which I'm sure is a major goal of the system). Unlike in soccer, yellow cards are persistent past one game, so two strikes and you're out, so to speak. I fear this has the potential to burn (for example) rookie teams that make two honest mistakes. I also noticed that the yellow flag rules for <T07> and <T09> represent a potentially strong and demoralizing positive punishment/negative reinforcement system that I haven't really seen in FIRST before, although that could be a helpful deterrent I suppose; still, the first thing that came to mind when I saw it introduced today was that it was like a team dunce cap. It's a little strange. Finally and perhaps most importantly, the rules are problematically vague about what actions, and to what degree they are carried out, warrant a card.

The upside of course (and I'm sure this is a main motivation behind instituting the system) is that there is much more transparency and legitimacy behind referees' warnings. It also encourages them to make warnings, and allows for them to promulgate and record them rather than allow teams to claim ignorance to warnings/suggestions/whatever they interpreted them to be (as many of us have seen in the past). I think this element is very good for the game, but whether the aforementioned potential downsides outweigh it we will only be able to tell after a couple of regionals. It all depends on implementation, and reminds us how important and tough officiating can be.