Someone on ESPN pointed out something that I think is relevant and that I hadn’t thought of before: those of us who have been defending the call have assumed the ball was uncatchable by Gronkowski because it was intercepted cleanly by the defender. BUT, defenders often fail to hold on to balls they “should have” intercepted. AND, if the ball was NOT intercepted cleanly, if the defender had the ball bounce off him into the air, Gronkowski MIGHT easily have had a play on it. So I’m now thinking that pass interference should have been upheld. You cannot assume the interception when making the call.
If the ball bounces off the defender into the air it’s a tip ball and interference rules go away. And really we aren’t assuming the interception would succeed, we’re seeing that the ball was nose diving into the ground at least 10 feet in front of Gronk and he had been moving to the back line through the whole play.
Excellent point — I hadn’t heard that. Adds even more fuel to the fire.