Yeah, but it's nowhere near as contrived as the NBA.
The pain you feel today is the strength you'll have tomorrow.
Posted on 09/25/2012 12:43:15 AM PDT by Zakeet
Monday's debacle only crystallizes what was already clear: NFL's substitute officials are a joke, and it's time for Commissioner Roger Goodell to end lockout.
Hail Mary. Holy hell.
On the final play of the final game of one of the most shameful weekends in NFL history, a last-gasp pass from the Seattle Seahawks fell from the sky into the arms of the Green Bay Packers on Monday night.
Touchdown, Seattle. Chaos, NFL.
Three weeks of gross incompetence by unqualified replacement officials crystallized in two moments Monday night that pushed the league's integrity to the brink.
In one moment, Packers safety M.D. Jennings clearly intercepted a final-play pass while falling upon Seahawks receiver Golden Tate in the end zone, preserving an apparent 12-7 Green Bay win.
In the next moment, the replacement officials ruled that Tate had made the catch, and upheld that ruling after replay review, giving the Seahawks a 14-12 victory.
Said Packers Coach Mike McCarthy: "I've never seen anything like that in all my years in football."
Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman tweeted: "These games are a joke."
It's finally happened. After three weeks of forgetting the rules, losing track of the ball, and haphazardly administering this country's national pastime as if they were salesmen on vacation from Foot Locker, the replacement officials have finally done serious, irrevocable damage. The arrogant NFL's middle-school and small-college substitutes for the locked-out regular officials have finally, actually, literally made one wrong call that decided the outcome of a game.
It was one of the worst calls in the history of the league, yet it might turn out to be one of the best calls if humiliated Commissioner Roger Goodell was listening to the message it sent.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
There’s no call for the insults.
I posted a generality — if you put yourself in a position where a single play/call can lose you the game, you should be more concerned about that than the play/call.
I specifically did not comment on the merits (or lack thereof) of the call in question, because I didn’t see it. It’s irrelevant to my comments anyway.
If you feel like venting, that’s fine, but there’s no reason to direct insults to me because you didn’t understand the point I was trying to make.
See post #60 — it’s not about money, in and of itself. It’s about pensions for part-time employees (who refuse to be full-time employees) and the refusal to allow the league to hold refs accountable for their performance.
“they could not overturn the call”
But what was the call? One ref said touchdown and another touchback.
“that was a bad rule correctly officiated”
Actually it was an insane rule that irrationally changed a pump fake into a forward pass. But even treating it like every other rule I don’t think it appplied, as it wasn’t at all clear to me that the ball was lost in the motion of tucking. How long did the Raiders have to wait after the pump fake to strip it? A year?
The Calvin Johnson thing is similar, in that they considered him spiking the ball as he got up to be part of the same motion as catching and landing with the ball. Which is stupid. I would cast this Hail Mary fall the same way, the reed’s inexperience on playing it safe notwithstanding. The reason the Tuck Rule game, the Johnson catch, and this game, among others, will be endlessly replayed is that the vagueries of the rulebook aside to the baked eye it looks like the absolute wrong call.
Granted, people also feel that way about legitimate plays like the Music City Miracle.
Yeah, but it's nowhere near as contrived as the NBA.
The pain you feel today is the strength you'll have tomorrow.
Until it’s tucked back in, hence the “tuck rule”. Very bad rule, but the officiated the rule accurately.
Calvin Johnson ran into a similarly bad rule, that one says a falling player has to maintain control “through the fall”, when are you done being “through a fall”, who can say for sure, but because he never really stopped moving you can make a pretty solid case that he was still falling at the point he let go of the ball even though he’d had the ball a while. Lesson there is “play through the whistle”, celebrating before the refs call a play dead almost always has bad results.
This one is different because Jennings had control of the ball first (both hands on the ball when Tate had no hands on the ball) and the rulebook clearly states that if one player has control before second player established joint control then there was no joint control. Those other two the logic of the viewer runs counter to the dictates of the rulebook, last night the logic of the viewer is right in line with the dictates of the book, and both are counter to what the refs called.
Music City Miracle is one of the best optical illusions ever. Because of relative body positions the only time it doesn’t look like a forward pass is that one camera angle where you can see the ball crossing the yard line in the backward pass direction, and even that one you still want to say it’s forward.
“Until it’s tucked back in”
No, because you don’t have to tuck it all the way back in. Your backward arm movement need not be considered a tuck at all if your intention isn’t to bring it back into the body, but rather merely to stop it from being a pass.
Here we arrive at the maddeningly subjective nature of bodily motions. The ref ruled that everything between the pump fake and the fumble was part of a continual process known as a tuck. But what if it was no such thing? What if Brady wasn’t tucking the ball back into hus body. What if it was backward motion coiling up for a new throw. How long does the defends have to wait to pop him? Infinitely, so long as the ball doesn’t touch his body or move forwards? That’s insane.
“You can make a pretty solid case he was still falling at the point he let go”
No you can’t. Toy can make a case, like the one I made to Ny mom red handed in front of the cookie jar. But not a solid case. The fall is completed when he hits the ground. That’s common sense. The ball comes out when he’s getting up, which is plain as day on the video. Now, getting up was in the same physical motion as taping, since obviously he never loses momentum. But it is not part of the same action according to the rules of football. Because once his Burt lands on the ground and he had control of the ball, it is a touchdown. What happens afterwards is after the play.
Only, just as with the tuck rule, we enter into the twilight zone of completing processes. The catch is not a catch until the process is complete. When is that, praytell? Two seconds later? Three? Does he have to go to sleep clutching the ball and be awarded the td after eight hours of REM?
If you go by body mechanics his fall ends when he lands. The ball comes out not until after he clearly turns his body and starts to get up. It was absolutely not the same process, and anyone who argues otherwise is frankly rationalizing from the assumption that the call is right.
“Jennings had control of the ball first”
The one relatively solid defended of the call I’ve heard is that Jennings’ original control came before his feet were down, and therefore before possession could be established. That still leaves the fact that Tate never seems to me to have clear possession, even simultaneously.
Yes you have to tuck it all the way back in. Backward arm movement doesn’t matter, once the arm goes forward with the ball it’s considered a pass attempt unless or until it’s tucked. That’s the rule. I agree it’s stupid, but that’s the rule. Your what ifs don’t matter, they show why the rule is stupid, but they don’t matter. Yes you’re right, it’s insane, BUT it’s the rule. Like I said, bad rule, officiated exactly as written.
By NFL rules hitting the ground is the BEGINNING of the fall NOT the end. Which on the surface makes sense, you’ve got a bunch of 6 foot tall people out there hitting the ground at all kinds of angles that make sure all 6 feet of them don’t hit the ground at once. If you declare the fall done the instant any part of the touches the ground what happens if they drop it. The rule is there for guys diving to catch the ball and it pops out when their shoulder hits, by your rule if their knee hits first that’s a completion, not common sense. Problem is the rule still gets stuck being vague, so we get a situation where a guy holds on the ball during all the “impact” parts of a fall and then lets go while he’s still got momentum. Sure looks like he finished falling, but by the rule he’s not. Again, bad rule, because it doesn’t define when a player is “through” falling, we know it’s after the instant of initial impact, and we know it’s before he gets back up on his feet. But with the rule as written it’s all a judgement call, and it penalizes players that use their momentum to get back up. Again, bad rule, officiated to the letter.
I agree with ALL of your logic on why the calls were logically wrong. What I’m pointing out is that the rules are written wrong. Happens. Especially in the NFL where they have a very thick rule book that tries to deal with every millisecond of possible action. Which is how we get situations where the refs are completely right while the results are illogical. The refs’ job is NOT to enforce logic, they enforce the BOOK.
Feet don’t matter. Feet establish if the control was inbounds which thus moves the control to possession, but control is in the hands. The rule talks about control, not feet, not possession (actually it’s deciding who to grant possession to based on control) Jennings had solo control first, if Tate ever had joint control it was after (milliseconds after but still after) Jennings had control.
I looked up the rule and I see it does talk about “control.” You’re still going to find people who say Jennings didn’t have control since Fate’s arm was in there and he couldn’t pull the ball into his chest. Nevertheless I’ve always said it was a Jennings catch. The possession thing was merely the best defense of the call I’ve heard.
It’s always the case some folks will look at the wrong body part. It’s part of the over legislated league. They’re so used to paying attention to feet for determining if a catch was inbounds they think it matter all the time. It’s the nice part about having been an RPGer with guys in my gaming group that were hardcore rules lawyers, I learned rule scope, usually while finding out the NPCs I made were completely useless against the rules lawyers.
I can agree that in the tuck rule and Johnson plays the refs are looking to the spirit of the law, and that even if it makes no sense to me at least there’s an argument to be had. They might possibly be right. It could have been a tuck. I ask what if it wasn’t, and really the only answer is it is if the ref says it is. The rulebook is vague enough to allow that.
As for Johnson I don’t see how any reasonable person can say he didn’t turn his body and wasn’t in the process of getting back up. But, again, the way the rule is written I guess since they don’t define what the process of a catch is whatever the ref says is part of the process is part of the process. Even when it isn’t.
As for last night’s game I’m not so sure it’s entirely more clear cut than the tuck rule and the Johnson catch. After all, any rule can be interpreted almost any way you want if you’re willing enough. Lawyers make a living at it. Who’s to say what “control” is? Maybe it is whatever the ref says it is, just like a tuck is a tuck when the ref says so or getting up is falling when the ref says so. Common sense and logic tell me Jennings caught it, but what are such faculties in the NFL.
Actually control is a pretty well established idea in the NFL, one hand and your body or two hands on the ball with its movements being the result of your actions and you never lose contact. Jennings got two hands on the ball and never had less than that, yeah Tate managed to move the ball in space but it never moved from Jennings’ hands, and it never moved in his hands, the parts he held onto at the start he still held onto (skidding and pivoting tend to be things they call as losing control).
I’ve argued in mu head enough with calls as to when a wobble is just a wobble or when sliding and skidding are okay and when they’re too much to know there’s room for disagreement. Of all the controversial plays, you’re right, control is fairly well established, unlike pass interference, for instance, where there doesn’t seem to be a standard at all. Then again, I might have thought the difference between falling down and getting up was pretty well established, too.
The call is tantamount to one player catching a football then falling on top of a second player who wrapes his arms around the first player and is thus given possession of the ball because he is holding the player holding the ball. Absurd and worth app. 150 nillion to those pulling the strings of the offending ‘official’. Pete Carroll has zero creds now, just another lying scumbag.
That’s a bit much. Tate actually did touch the ball, and there was simultaneous possession for awhile. It’s just that Jennings got it first. Plus, Tate shoved that other Packer down.
Looks like an agreement with the regular referees is imminent.
NFL, referees close to agreement, according to reports
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