“If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.”
Is anyone seriously arguing that Megatron didn’t lose control of the ball after he hit the ground? It’s pretty obvious in the replay that he did because rolls away.
Many of you have asked how long he has to maintain control of the ball after he lands. Is waiting until the referee blows the play dead too long? I’m pretty sure at least one of CJ’s coaches at least once said, “play until you hear the whistle.”
But what does having control of one’s body have to do with having possession of the football? My hypothetical was purposely silly so I could highlight the most important part of the sequence, which is the part where he’s in the endzone with the ball in his hand. Even though he’s stumbling around and seems to be out of control, he’s holding the ball firmly in his hand the entire time while in the endzone. That should be a TD, regardless of whether the play was whistled dead.
Put it this way: if Tony Scheffler had made that catch, it would have been a TD, because he probably would have skidded on his hip for a bit, stopped, deliberately turned over, and picked himself up off the ground while setting the ball down. CJ got called incomplete because he moved too fast. I still think the right call was made, but I can see why the Detroit fans are pissed.
"The rule is if you’re going to the ground in the process of making the catch you need to finish with the football. He didn’t finish with the football. "
This is very curious wording. The final sentence seems to be clearly saying that if CJ had lost control (e.g. bobbled the ball) but regained it prior to the ball hitting the ground, it would be ruled complete even though the ball later hit the ground and came loose.
But he never lost control until well after touching the ground. He grabbed the catch and didn’t bobble it. He controlled it securely (in one hand!) for a meaningful amount of time. But because he gained control, but never regained it, the rule requires him to maintain that control far longer - which he didn’t do.
It seems the ruling was correct, but the rule’s wording must be called bizarre.
A completely different rule covers bobbled passes. This rule covers when the player loses control as a result of going to the ground.
Landing on the ground caused CJ to lose control of the ball. The ball was touching the ground when he lost control so there was no opportunity for him to regain control before the ball touched the ground. Therefore incomplete pass.
NO I am quoting a long time successful coach who is a color analyst.
Schwartz was trying to keep his team from feeling cheated and to focus on the next game. He wanted to end the debate for his team. The Lions have enough trouble without feeling jobbed. Schwartz had a reason he wanted to get by it as fast as possible.
Again, I am talking about making this rule consistent with the other rules-yeah, by strict interpretation of the current (and clarified) rule, it’s no catch. I’m arguing against the rule and not the call. My point is, normally once a player with the ball has a non-hand/non-foot part of his body impact the ground (or any part of his body touches the sideline or endline), the play is over, there can be no fumble, anything which happens afterwards is completely irrelevant. This has been shown to be true time and time again in umpteen-billion overturned replays.
But that concept, that anything which happens after the ball carrier is legally down is irrelevant, has now been turned on its head (at whatever point in time that the rule in question was penned/clarified), and now something which happens after the receiver of a legal pass is down by contact now has a bearing on whether he had possession in the first place. And in this particular case, not only did his hip/butt hit the ground before the ball came out, his non-ball hand was touching the end line! THAT is the inconsistency that I am arguing against, that they need to make the two rules consistent with each other. And to do so would not be difficult or complicated and would be 100x fairer and less confusing to the fans, coaches, and pundits.
Nobody has responded to my corrolary point, which was that a defender, once he sees that the receiver is rolling around on the ground, is better off risking the 15 yard personal foul on a late hit, in the hopes of causing the receiver to lose control and have the pass ruled incomplete, than he is not attempting the late hit. That gamble is probably worth the chance of the penalty in about 99% of all game situations, and again introduces a dangerous (literal, in this case) inconsistency with the normal rule against late hits, where the ball carrier is protected from such devilry and he cannot lose possession because of it.
ESPN NFL primetime says the league is going to try and clean up the language because as this thread shows, it can be confusing. The rule was enacted to stop guys from catching a ball in the end zone and immediately spiking it to remove the question of control. It seems the rule has backfired .
Defenders are supposed to try to hit receivers attempting to catch the ball. That’s their job. Does this pose a danger to receivers? Of course. It’s football.
The ESPN guys showed the Superbowl play ,which was ruled a catch. Then showed Calvins catch showing how much longer he had the ball, yet it was ruled incomplete. There is plenty of reason to feel screwed over.
You are, of course, entitled to feel however you wish. Your feelings on the matter, however, are not relevant to whether it was the correct call or not. All of the feelings, emotions and opinions in the world are not a substitute for facts.
I had posted a “new” thread on this in GQ without considering the Game Room. That thread was closed because of this thread. After reviewing this thread, considering the videos and the rule, I’ve come to this conclusion: The receiver was holding the ball with one hand as he went down. He touched the ground with the football, along with some body parts. But it appears that by touching the football to the ground as he landed, he used the football with the ground to maintain control. Thus incomplete. He might’ve maintained control without using the football and the ground, but he did not. He should have tucked the ball into his body as he fell, instead of holding his arm and the ball out.
I agree it looks like he was screwed over but really he wasn’t. It is an incomplete catch. How long he has the ball makes no difference. I believe where you are getting hung up is the distinction between a single act and a second act.
Look at the Shockey video linked earlier. He has the ball for about a nano-second before coughing it up. However, there are two acts there:
Catches ball
Gets hit hard and coughs up the ball
It does not matter how much time is between these two acts. The catch was a fair one and someone else caused a follow-on action after the catch.
Now in the Detroit v. Bears game we have one act:
Catches ball
This is the important part here. There was ONE single act of catching the ball. For it to be a completion the receiver needs to maintain control through the WHOLE action. In this case the action was a long one but again it does not matter. He leaps in the air, catches the ball then continues to the ground in one drawn out action.
If you think about it this makes sense. Complete the act of catching the ball. That was not done in this case.
I think when you say you have seen this not called in the past you are missing the one action versus follow-on actions (which again can be so close together to seem like one thing unless you think about it).
FWIW I am a Bears fan and admit if the situation was reversed I’d be unhappy but I would still hold this view.
To me, this play was akin to the Dwayne Rudd helmet toss in the 2002 Browns-Chiefs game. Rudd thought that Trent Green had been sacked and the game was over, so he took his helmet off to celebrate. But Trent Green had managed to lateral the ball to a lineman, who took it down into field goal range. Since the play was still going on, Rudd got called for a personal foul for taking his helmet off, and KC got an untimed down to kick the winning FG. Rudd hadn’t violated the spirit of the rule, which was to prevent players from taking their helmets off after big plays to showboat, because he thought the game was over. What mattered was that he had violated the letter of the rule.
The same thing happened here. The spirit of the rule is to ensure that receivers are held to the same standard of possession when they’re in the endzone or going out of bounds as they are when they’re in the middle of the field. This play happened so fast that it got whistled incomplete because CJ jumped up onto his feet before the ref could register that he had made the catch. It looks more like a legit catch when you slow it down, but not indisputably so; it’s possible that CJ actually was flailing and couldn’t maintain possession as he swung his arm over and spiked the ball into the ground and out of his hand. Thus, the ref couldn’t overturn the call on the field.
During yesterday’s game, Calvin Johnson hitting the ground caused him to lose possession of the ball resulting in an incomplete pass.
In the superbowl, Lance Moore maintained possession while hitting the ground and then a defender kicked it out of his hand.
Can you honestly not see the difference?
Furthermore, even if they did blow a call in the superbowl, does that mean they should always blow the call?
Many people have given you examples of other times this rule was applied in exactly the same way. Can you explain to us why you think this is a catch based on the letter of the rule? One hundred, or one thousand, other people’s opinions do not cut it. Please make your case for how Megatron satisfied the definition of a catch made by a player going to the ground provided in this thread.