I picked the Broncos, but I did not expect such total domination on defense after the way Carolina crushed the Seahawks and the Cardinals in the playoffs. I expected a higher-scoring game all the way around, but woot! We win!!
As for the Budweiser thing, I like Manning better the way he is rather than more like Paul Morphy, who said:
He stuck to that, too. His life fell completely apart. I think Manning scored plenty of honor points over his career, and having a big pile of dough to boot really doesn’t bother me. Precedent suggests purists get clobbered. Enjoy your shitty beer, Manning, you earned it!
Thanks for the correction. I thought Kubiak was Elway’s backup but he had already retired and gone into coaching. He was a QB coach with the 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX.
I think the non-reversal in the first quarter was correct. If the tip of the ball touched the ground, then it’s incomplete. None of the angles show definitively whether or not the ball touched the ground. No conclusive evidence to overturn the call.
Also, the tuck rule was repealed a few years back.
But the tip of the ball can touch the ground all it wants, so long as doing so doesn’t cause the receiver to lose control of the ball. What I saw in the replay was the ball caught and controlled, tip of the ball touches the ground, comes back up off the ground as the receiver is rolling, ball comes loose briefly when the DB pushes up against it, then controlled again without touching the ground a second time.
So far as I understand the rule (insofar as the rule is even understandable), that’s a catch. The only way the non-reversal was good was if it wasn’t clear that ball didn’t shift in the receiver’s hand as it initially touched the ground. I thought that part was perfectly clear, but I can kinda sorta see how someone might think the subsequent shifting of the ball by the DB muddies the waters enough to not overturn. Sort of. Not really.
There are two separate aspects to the “common sense” catch rules in place:
When going to the ground, you must demonstrate possession all the way to the ground.
The ball is allowed to touch the ground if you demonstrate complete control.
Where the rule is murky is when you combine them. The 1) rule kind of makes the entire act of going to the ground a single action. The 2) rule could then theoretically get stretched to the entire action due to 1).
He clearly and undeniably had complete control when the ball brushed the ground as he went down. But the momentum of his fall wasn’t finished. After the brief ground-brushing, he pulled the ball back up off the ground, and then clearly lost control of it. Then he regained control before the momentum of his fall ended.
I’m thinking the replay ruling was that the ball touched the ground (while under complete control), but because that complete control was not maintained for the entire remainder of falling to the ground (considered a single action) that the initial under-control touching of the ground negates the catch.
I’m fairly confident that the cause of losing control is irrelevant: If the ball touches the ground in the act of catching it, and you don’t have complete control for any reason, it’s ruled incomplete.
One key factor is the initial call: incomplete. Replays then did not reveal clear and incontrovertible/compelling evidence (whatever the verbiage is) to overturn that call. The nose of the ball did touch briefly before Cotchery rolled over and briefly lost control. After Cotchery rolled over, from that point on he regained control of the ball sufficiently. It’s what happened after the nose of the ball touched the turf and before he rolled over. When the ball was beneath his body no replay angles showed that the ball didn’t move, therefore meaning Cotchery had control of the ball while he was on top of it.
The ball can touch the ground but the receiver has to have possession and control of the ball. Possession, he had, but control was not determinable. Not enough evidence to overturn.
Receiver catches the ball in mid-air. As he goes to the ground, a defender punches the ball out of his hands at the same time the ball touches the ground. The receiver then quickly regains control.
Is this a catch? I say it’s obviously and clearly not a catch, but your interpretation would say it’s a catch because it wasn’t the ground that knocked the ball loose.
On another note, wow, Cam, way to double-down on the whiny baby reputation your haters believe you to be. It’s not every day you see an NFL QB wear the mantle of sore loser with pride. Pathetic.
No, it would not be a catch. Not because of what knocked the ball loose, but because the ball was loose while touching the ground. Try this thought experiment:
Receiver catches the ball going to the ground. Ball touches the ground but doesn’t shift on contact. As the receiver rolls over on his back with the ball on his chest, the rotation of his body slams his elbow into the ground and jars the ball loose while it’s still on his chest. He regains control without the ball touching the ground again.
I say this is obviously a catch, but your rule makes it not a catch because there is a time while going to the ground when the receiver doesn’t control the ball. This is essentially what happened with Cotchery, except that the shifted in his grasp because of contact with a defender.
It’s not “my rule” or how I necessarily think it should be. It’s my interpretation of why the Cotchery play was ruled incomplete.
Also, the following isolated point has nothing to do with continuing action or anything related to the Cotchery play. It stands in a vaccuum:
Your reply:
But then you go on to support exactly this interpretation. If the ball touches the ground when the receiver doesn’t have complete control, it’s not a catch.
I don’t understand why you said you’d never heard of such an interpretation.
Yeah. Cam really had a rough Super Bowl, both during, and after, the game. He did a fair amount of damage to his reputation, and I’m not so sure teammates are going to be enamoured with his decision to save himself rather than jump on that fumble.
I find myself, painfully, agreeing with Deion when he said that if Cam is going to dance and pose when things are going well, he needs to suck it up and be professional when things aren’t.
Russell Wilson threw an interception in the endzone on their last drive of last year’s Super Bowl, costing his team the game. He was upset and angry. But he’s mature and enough of a professional to answer questions at the press conference and no one questioned his leadership of desire to win at all costs.
