Can somebody please define, simply, what exactly a ‘football move’ is?
Why?
Because the term comes up repeatedly in this thread.
But, as I have pointed out, that term does not come up in the rule that governs this situation.
So? It has come up and I`d like to be clear on it. And since it has been mentioned in this thread it seemed like a good place to ask, rather than start a new thread.
This seems to be a fairly official word on the subject. Apparently they will look at it in the off season but they feel the rule was applied correctly in this instance (which pretty much every official source I have read agrees with including the Lion’s head coach). Further, this guy seems to imply a better rule may be hard to come by.
Herman Moore was a tall high jumping wide receiver for the Lions years ago, He said that he made 670 catches in his career.With those new rules he said he would have to eliminate 655 of them. He exaggerates, but the point is that Calvins catch was always a catch before.
If they start calling all the games that way, it will get noisy around the NFL.
Do you read what has been written before posting?
From my post above:
“…in this case, everybody knew the rule very well. Everybody knew exactly how that play was going to be ruled. There wasn’t any debate about how it should have been called given how the rule reads. That’s what you want.”
~NFL competition committee member Ozzie Newsome
What part of that is unclear to you? Did you miss where the Lion’s head coach essentially agreed with this? Did you miss the parts that this has been the way of thing for awhile now? Why will it all of a sudden get noisy?
That’s an exaggeration to absurdity. He’s just playing to his home crowd. If he really feels that way, then he’s saying he dropped almost every pass he caught in his career, which means he wasn’t as good a receiver as his reputation indicates.
Let me ask you straight out. If a receiver leaps into the air and catches a ball, do you think its a catch if the ball pops out when he hits the ground? That is all this rule states and I can’t really believe that you disagree with this.
Remember falling to the ground counts even if your feet somehow touch the ground in the act of falling.
I don’t know why I’m bothering with this but the rules today allow for things that didn’t used to be catches to now be catches. Please see the Bert Emanuel rule that I linked to earlier. With just as much rigor as Herman Moore applied I calculate that he would have had 713 career receptions if the Bert Emanuel rule was in effect his entire career.
Except in this case he dropped the ball a significant amount of time (in football terms) AFTER he hit the ground. I don’t think any of us arguing against the rule have any issues with the ground directly causing the incompletion upon first contact with said ground-but that wasn’t the case here. Thus my question upthread remains unanswered: at what point after the player hits the ground does the catch become legal? Only at the instant he becomes completely motionless and stops twitching, even if significant time has passed since first contact? I’ll also note that college players do this all the time-since spiking is a penalty, they’ll often just stick the ball on the ground after the TD, just as was the case here.
And they invariably blow them for a 15-yarder if he gets hit in this situation; often there’s a second or two lag between the ball carrier hitting the ground and the whistle being blown (and then, if the play would stop the clock, the clock runs off for an additional 1-3 seconds on top of that, but that’s for another thread). You appear to have been following the game long enough to understand this, Omni. That the defenders of this rule cannot see (or even refuse to acknowledge my argument on these lines) that this rule is a complete and open invitation for dirty play, precisely because it gives the defense one last shot at forcing the incompletion in a situation where a penalty is usually automatic, is inexplicable to me.
Again, according to the rule in question (idiotic as it is), it isn’t a catch. We’re discussing if the rule makes any sense in the first place. Please stop misrepresenting our arguments.
In any event, if you True Defenders of the One True Faith want to continue trying to polish this turd of a rule into a nice shiny diamond, keep on keeping on. As I said upthread I’m done with this boring idiotic league.
These two statements are not the same thing:
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the player hits the ground
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the very first part of the player hits the ground
A player is still falling until he finishes falling. In this case the last part of him to hit the ground was the hand with the ball, and the ball squirted free. So as he was completing his fall, the ball popped out. Just because his right little toenail hit the ground first doesn’t mean that at that instant the fall was over.
Here’s the rule once more - “If a player catches a ball in the air, he must mantain control of the ball when he hits the ground”
What part of that rule is the least bit controversial? I just can’t see it.
He did?
Define a “significant amount of time” for us please.
At regular speed the catch till the ball popping out happen in about a second (maybe 1.5). In the linked video the catch and ball out occur around 0:01 - 0:03 in the video.
Watch the slow-mo.
The ball (in his hand) hits the ground and immediately pops out of his grasp (at 0:43 in the linked video).
How much faster could it be in your view?
Because people here are assuming that “when” is exactly the same thing as “after.” And yes, Whack-a-Mole, his butt hits the ground, he rolls over, he either places the ball on the ground deliberately (or accidentally loses control, but officials can’t be mindreaders), and then and only then does the ball come loose. Again, how fucking long does he have to maintain control AFTER a non foot/hand part of his body hits the ground-please go ahead and answer that question, because so far nobody has. 1 second? 5 seconds? Only after his body comes to a complete stop? If the latter the rule is hopelessly flawed, because in theory he could keep flopping around for many seconds after first contact.
Until he stops falling down. Why is that so hard to grasp? A fall is a fall. The entire fall wasn’t completed until he put his hand with the ball down to brace himself and thats when the ball was jarred loose. So at the tail end of his fall the ball popped out. Where do you consider his fall to be completed?
Basically, this play stretches this rule out to the limit since he lost the ball at the very end of his crazy fall. That does not mean that the rule in all cases is bad. A player must hold on to the ball when he hits the ground after catching it in mid air. Why is this bad?
Remember, this all could have been avoided if the receiver just held onto the damn ball. If he just tucked it away and fell normally, then there’s no problem. Why don’t you blame the receiver at all for his bonehead play? Why is the entire NFL to blame for his mistake?
He had complete control for a long time. In the end zone that is supposed to be enough. This rule has not been used like that before and it is a new interpretation. You are a good little soldier and are willing to accept what ever the league sets down. Good for you, but the hue and cry is because this was a unique use of the relatively new rules. If they had hundreds of similar calls ,nobody would bitch. But this is not only new but it was a crucial call that cost the Lions the game. He could have spiked the ball and got a TD.
What does how many times you hit the ground have to do with it?
Imagine you are in a car and hit a tree going 50 mph and fly out the windshield. You may hit the ground 10 times before coming to a stop and at no point could you said to be in control.
In football you need to demonstrate control of the ball for a catch to count. This is nothing new to you I am sure and not something I think you have issue with.
Johnson did not demonstrate that control because the whole fall and parts of him hitting the ground are part of one action…that of catching the ball.
The implication, to me, is that in theory the player who has control of the ball could do something else (not that they have to but in theory they could).
Imagine Johnson was in the middle of the field with no one within 20 yards of him and he made that same catch. At no point was Johnson in control such that, a person with no one around him could continue the play. If he had possession (read control) he could in such a situation. It doesn’t matter how long he flails around as long as he is flailing out of control and it doesn’t matter how much of him hits the ground.
He also said Michael Vick was a changed man prior to the incident at Vick’s birthday party.
“You are a good little soldier”
You’re out of line. I could say you’re a good little Lions fan. Does that help anything?
Again, when did you consider his fall to be over? At what point of his flailing was his fall complete?