I’ve been surprised at how inept NFL officiating has been at times so far this season, but yesterday’s San Diego/Denver game was shocking. I’m no fan of San Diego in particular, but I would never have thought I would see the officials hand one team 14 points like that. Here’s the thing about the blown whistle near the end of the game that nobody else seems to be mentioning, forget that the arm was clearly not going forward, forget that the officials are supposed to have a policy of not blowing the whistle with potentially live balls, the ball left the quarterback and clearly traveled backward! Even if you think that was a pass, passes backward are live balls. How could Hoculi have forgotten that basic rule?
I’m moving this from Cafe Society to The Game Room, the forum for sports et al.
I watched that too. On the side of good officiating, the Ref did admit he blew the call to the entire stadium. Stuff happens. (and I’m a Charger fan)
Backward passes aren’t determined by the trajectory of the ball, but rather the direction the hand is moving.
Not good enough. The replay was back on wasn’t it.?
Yes, but it was not a reviewable call.
Could you elaborate on this? I’ve never heard it, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If the Quarterback releases the ball and it lands two yards behind him, then there would seem to be only two possibilities: either he lost control of it before releasing it (in which case it’s a live ball), or his arm was traveling backward when he released it (in which case it’s a live ball) – maybe if the QB had two or three elbows on his throwing arm there would be third possibility.
Wind, spin, arm was hit during the release, etc…
This was elaborated on in great detail during a Giants game last season or the season before, btw. It was the play where Shockey didn’t go after the ball, but instead pulled up and started clapping. The other team scooped it up and started running. Eventually on review it was determined to be a forward pass despite the fact that it landed several yards behind where it was released from.
You’re also looking at it too binary. Imagine the QB turns sideways and throws the ball with an arm motion just a few degrees forward of parallel with the line of scrimmage. This is what Eli did. The ball landed several yards behind where he threw it, right near the sideline.
Didn’t matter that the ball went backward. The arm was going forward, and that’s what defines a forward pass.
This also may have been a factor in the Music City Miracle.
FWIW, in rugby, a ball can actually travel forward and not be considered a forward pass. The ball only has to travel laterally with respect to the passer. If he’s traveling along at a good clip, he can pass it behind himself while it’s actually going forward. The rule of thumb is that you don’t call a forward pass unless you’re sure it is, and you call a knock on unless you’re sure it isn’t.
Who says he forgot anything? He blew the whistle when he shouldn’t have. He’s human, he made a mistake. He’s expected to watch a collection of men run around doing a wide variety of things, and make decisions in a split second, every once in a while he’s just flat out going to blow it. This is why they have replay, unfortunately, this is not the type of mistake that one can just fix.
Yeah, he didn’t forget any rules. I think from his angle, it looked like Cutler dropped the ball as his arm was going forward. The Chargers defender was right in Cutler’s face, and it may have looked like he batted the ball down. The ball hit the ground, the ref blew the play dead, and that’s the way it went.
And I really think the “refs handed them 14 points” claim is stupid. There were eleven other men on the field besides the refs, and their whole point, their whole reason for existing, is to keep the opposing team out of the endzone. They had four chances to do this. And on the last possession, it took four chances because they went for it on 4th and goal. And then they had another chance with the 2 point conversion! There’s a reason coaches don’t do that with less than 2 mins left in the game–it’s fucking stupid. Plus, the offense had 22 seconds to get down to score. Not an easy task, but not impossible. Of course, they didn’t do it because for once the Broncos actually woke up on defense and kept it from happening.
It might be the ref’s fault that the Broncos were still in that situation, but ultimately, the defense only had to make a stand for one more play. If they can’t play all four downs with the endzone at their backs, then they clearly don’t deserve to win. Hell, the muffed call even helped the Chargers because it put the Broncos on the 10 yard line, further from the endzone than they were. Instead of whining like a bitch at his press conference, Norv Turner should be asking his defense just, what, exactly the owner is paying them for. After this week and last week, they’re apparently not getting paid to defend the goal.
To expand on the idea a little bit, it isn’t strictly true that the backwardness of a pass is detemined by the motion of the hand – a pass is backward if it is not forward, which includes parallel passes, period. By interpretation, though, a pass attempt begins when the arm starts moving forward. That means that in a situation like yesterday’s, if the quarterback’s arm did in fact start moving forward, the trajectory of the ball is indeed irrelevant, since by fiat he was attempting a forward pass.
Now, the problem, in my opinion, is that there’s a profound disconnect between the pass attempt interpretation and the rule about backward vs. forward passes, and that’s what I think we’re butting our heads against in this discussion. With the current state of the rules & interpretations, if a quarterback was to load up to throw a swing pass to a back and get hit as he threw, and the ball went backward, the referee could very defensibly find that this was an incomplete pass, since the rule about a pass attempt says that “if a defensive player contacts the passer or the ball after forward movement begins, and the ball leaves the passer’s hand, a forward pass is ruled, regardless of where the ball strikes the ground or a player.” Of course, in this hypothetical, it might be clear that the intended receiver was parallel or behind the quarterback, and so by the definition of a “forward pass,” the ball would have been live even if the quarterback had completed his motion. So the defender would have, by interrupting the arm motion, created a “forward” pass attempt out of what was in fact an attempt to throw a lateral. And the ref wouldn’t be wrong to call that an incomplete pass and a dead ball.
Am I making sense?
Maybe.
According to the rulebook from 2006 (Warning, PDF!), Article 2 subsection b defines a forward pass as a ball that strikes the ground, a player, an official, or anything else at a point that is nearer the opponent’s goal line than the point at which the ball leaves the passer’s hand.
It goes on to say in NOTE 1 that “When a Team A players is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional movement forward of his hand starts a forward pass. If a Team B player contacts the passer or the ball after forward movement begins, and the ball leaves the passers’s hand, a forward pass is ruled, regardless of where the ball strikes the ground or a player.”
According to subsection b, it does matter where the ball lands and it doesn’t matter what the arm motion is. According to Note 1 is does matter what the arm motion is and not where the ball lands. However, Note 1 also talks about the player or ball being contacted by the defensive team.
So I really don’t know. One interpretation is that the second sentence of Note 1 is a requirement on the first sentence, but it sure doesn’t read that way to me.
I think you are right, but I can’t really tell from the rules.
So by this logic, any team that gets first and goal should automatically get 4 shots (or at the very least 1 more shot) at the endzone even if they throw an interception or fumble because if the defense can’t stop them then the defense doesn’t deserve to win. Riiiiiight.
This is a joke, right? Someone steals $100 from you but it is okay, hell, even helps you, if they give you back $10?
Yes, that is exactly what I said. And by “exactly” I mean “nothing.” Cutler did throw an interception in the Red Zone–is anybody arguing that the Chargers should have given the ball back and given them another shot? No, because that’s fucking stupid.
Every single game, every single week, is going to have at least one bad call. That call can be so bad everybody talks about it for the next week, or it can be so bad everybody talks about it for years (ask a Raiders fan about the Tuck Rule), or it can be forgotten by the time the clock expires. But it is going to happen. Period. Because refs are human and the instant replay machines don’t always work, or can’t always change the call on the field.
When that happens, you have two choices. Cry like a bunch of pussies. Or cowboy up and play the next down. The Chargers were screwed on the call. It’s not the first time that’s happened to a team. It won’t be the last. They could have made it a non-issue by stopping the Broncos on 4th down. They could have it a non-issue by stopping the Broncos on the 2-point conversion.
They didn’t. So fuck 'em.
You said exactly this:
There is more than 1 way to keep a team from scoring. You can
- Get an interception
- Recover a fumble
- Stop them on downs
- Have the clock run out
Only 1 of these ways results in all four downs being played. Therefore, according to your statement, the only way a team deserves to win is if they take option 3. That is what you said, exactly. If they cause a fumble or get an interception they didn’t play all 4 downs and therefore that isn’t good enough, apparently.
The rest of your post I couldn’t agree with more. It wasn’t one bad call that cost them the game. It was the fact they gave up 39 points and could score only 38. As you said, it was a bad call and it happens all the time. It was a bad call at a bad time, to be sure, but it wasn’t like the officials just handed the game to Denver. But you can’t deny that the Chargers got screwed. Personally, I think that gives them the right to complain.
The officials during the infamous “tuck” game got the call right. I know Raiders fans still think the refs blew it, but they didn’t.
No, it was a fumble. The call was wrong.
Yes, I know. I meant that, ideally, the Bolts defense should be able to play every down. They stopped the first 2 downs. The third one, Cutler fucked up, and a bad call was made (and I have acknowledged it was a bad call and the Broncos lucked out–ye even the football gods treated them benevolently). That meant they still had to suck it up and play the fourth down. The team should be capable of playing all 4 downs is a 4th and goal situation, regardless of what happens, or how the ref fucks up.
They had the same problem against Carolina. Stopping them 3 times isn’t enough in the waning minutes (or seconds) of the game. They need to do it four times.
I don’t have an opinion on the Tuck call (except that it made me laugh and laugh and I still get a chuckle from it. But I’m a bitch who hates the Raiders so…)
Read Rule 3 Section 21 Article 2 Note 2 and get back to me. Or I can just quote it for you:
Note 2: When a Team A player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement on his hand starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back towards his body. Also, if the player has tucked the ball into his body and then loses possession it is a fumble.
Are you contending that Brady had already tucked the ball into his body? If not, I’m not sure how you can say they blew it given the rule as quoted above.