Sorry, the “tuck rule” is even stupider.
Stupider than the infamous “tuck rule” which has been on the books for decades yet has only been inforced once?
Okay, I was six minutes late, but I still call that a simupost.
I ain’t got a dog in this fight, and looking at it from the actual rules of football I say: Good call. Now from the rules of logic: Terrible call. But since when were football rules logical?
Suck it up and quityerbitchin’. You won the game. Try being a life-long Lions fan.
Can someone explain the tuck rule for me? For some reason I can’t google a proper definition for the life of me.
The reason you can’t find a definition is because it’s indefinable. But this is an explanation from officials:
Actually, I think the tuck rule is fairly logical, since it’s goal is to define forward pass vs. fumble with the utmost rigidity. If the arm is moving forward, it’s a forward pass, period. No BS about trying to determine if the passer was really trying to throw the ball or not, no arguments about “he wasn’t trying to throw, he was trying to tuck”. Arm is moving forward? It’s a pass.
I’m not so sure about the logic behind the “football move” concept. I figure, if you have full possession of the ball and are on the ground, then it should be complete.
How is this a rule? If Polamalu doesn’t get up and just lays there, he has an interception. If no one touches him, according to the rule that was quoted by Morelli and BobLibDem, the clock keeps running until the game clock runs down? What if he was injured on the play and couldn’t get up to run? If I read this right, the 10 guys on the Steeler defense could have made a big rugby circle around Polamalu, and fought to keep the Colts from touching him. If they succeeded for 6 minutes, the game is over?
An act common to the game of football? WTF is that exactly? If he lays there with a broken ankle, is that an act common to the game of football? Because he’s an athlete who high steps and knocks the ball out of his own hand, after he intercepts the ball, rolls over with it, and starts to rise, that’s not an interception? I would bet my house that if a Colt player recovered that fumble after Polamalu recovered it, it would have been first down Colts.
I’m sorry, but if this IS a rule, it seems open to interpretation. And if that’s the case, you have to err on the side of what was called on the field.
What a bunch of crap. The tuck rule is crap, and this rule is crap.
George Brett had pine tar on his bat above the trademark. His home run was overturned by the home plate umpire because that was the “rule”. At least MLB had the ability and the balls to overturn the umpire’s ruling. But what would have happened if it was a playoff game?
I figure after this season there will be an attempt to clarify the pass catching rules again they are arbitrary and stupid and have been for the last couple years.
If you are on the sideline or back line, then no football move is needed, just posession and two feet down. Unless they count going out of bounds, or being touched down as a valid “football move”. That would tidy things up I guess, but be really assinine.
I can see the refs point. Polamalu’s “football move” was to role to his feet and get up to run. Since he didn’t complete the move it wasn’t a catch. It’s just remarkably stupid.
I heard it on the radio(Bob Trumpy and ?) , and they both were completely surprised it was overturned. I still haven’t seen it.
They should stick with it, it’s still better than not. But what irritates me is if they go to a commercial, then come back and then the ref says it will now be reviewed. Just go and do it right away, why wait.
[hijack]
Well, a game used to pretty consistently take about two hours, and frequently less. I don’t have the stats to prove it, but I think there are more pitches in a game now. The batters take longer to get in the box, the pitchers take longer to get on the rubber, and of course changing pitchers in the middle of an inning seventeen times in a game doesn’t help. I’d also like it if they sped up just a bit; maybe they’d regain the rythm and pace the game requires to be truly good.
[/hijack]
Maybe this is a point in favour of instant replay: it exposes rules that are stupid :). It seems that this call may have been technically correct, even though the play should be an interception just from common sense.
I think in general instant replay may require changes to rules like this. On the field, they’ll call that an interception every time, but when the challenge comes up the ref has time to go through and come up with the obscure rule that makes this an incompletion. So the fact that rules like this & the tuck rule exist will only cause problems in replay situations.
Tell us about that Gato forward pass/non fumble/non safety thingy. And offensive holding between the half yard maker and the endzone but not in it. Now that was a horrid set of calls. 
In a nutshell: no matter what happens, if you’re playing the Lions, they can not, under any circumstance get a safety.
I agree completely, and I’d add that batters call for time much too often.
As well they should hang him out to dry. That was the most tortured interpretation of a rule I have ever seen in any sport. The sheer effort it took to come up with a plausible excuse to overturn that one must have been exhausting, because he called the game OK after that. He must have run out of ideas to give Indy the game once he delivered his masterpiece.
I really don’t think that the call was an attempt to throw the game. Rather, I’ll bet the reasoning went something like this:
“If I rule it an interception, the game is effectively over – the Steeler’s win. If I rule it an incomplete pass, either team can still win.”
Typical fear of making a big, game-changing call that is way too common in “professional” sports officials. Hardly any better than deliberately throwing a game, and certainly doesn’t make the call any less atrocious.
Still, you think that the NFL is bad? Try the CFL – where there’s no instant replay, unless the Argonauts show a play on the big screen.
This version of that story has the NFL spokesman saying that the call was wrong:
Excuse me. After I got to work, I realized I’d left off the first paragraph of Morelli’s explanation. Here’s the full version of it, or at least what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported:
I’m afraid the full explanation doesn’t look much better. Around here, it’s being called “The Immaculate Deception” or “The Immaculate Misconception”.
CJ