# NFL 2022: Conference Championship Week **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** football-nfl\ **Created:** [January 25, 2023, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794 "2023-01-25T17:08:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/101 "2023-01-30T05:34:59Z")
No, that late hit was egregious. I don’t like then”treat the QB like a crystal glass” type of rule, but he was clearly out of bounds and I swear I saw an extra shove at the end of it too. Good call on anyone. I mean, I saw it in real time and called it before the flag was even thrown. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/102 "2023-01-30T05:35:43Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > I’m probably on an island here, but I don’t think the refs should have made that call. Yes, yes you are. > [@Omniscient](#): > > I think the whole “hit out of bounds” thing has gone to absurd levels. We have players going full out trying to keep a guy in bounds to keep the clock going or to keep him from stealing a yard at the sticks by extending an arm. We also have offensive players faking going out of bounds and using it as weapon. None of this happened on the late hit on Mahomes. > [@Omniscient](#): > > This hit was barely late…and both players were running in the same direction, it was a trivial shove that Mahomes sold Look at the replay, and tell me that this was ‘barely late’ and a ‘trivial shove’. It drove Mahomes into the ground and damn near into the bench. > ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/103 "2023-01-30T05:40:44Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > I think the whole “hit out of bounds” thing has gone to absurd levels. I kind of agree. > [@](#): > > I know it’s probably impossible to legislate this kind of thing We can make the standard that the player isn’t out of bounds until part of his body touches out of bounds. So if he’s angling out of bounds and his final step on green carries him to the other side of the white, he’s not out (and protected against late hits) until his foot actually comes down on the white. I remember being super pissed in the 2000s when the Giants were playing the Falcons and Michael Vick pretended he was going out of bounds then stole another 8 yards or so going up the sideline before he lost his balance and stepped out. What pissed me off is later in the game he was going toward the sideline and it looked pretty much exactly the same, only this time the defender pushed him out to make sure and got called for roughing. On replay it was clear that Vick had not yet set foot out of bounds when the contact happened, but nobody mentioned or paid attention to it at all. (Probably because it looked like his momentum was carrying him out, but that was also true earlier in the game when he snaked a free 8 yards out of it.) ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/104 "2023-01-30T05:43:03Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Look at the replay, and tell me that this was ‘barely late’ and a ‘trivial shove’. It drove Mahomes into the ground and damn near into the bench. It looks to me like Mahomes only got one foot out of bounds before the contact came, so I would agree he was out of bounds, late hit. But just barely. Almost close enough to qualify for the “swallow the whistle at the end of the game” umbrella exception. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/105 "2023-01-30T05:50:30Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Look at the replay, and tell me that this was ‘barely late’ and a ‘trivial shove’. It drove Mahomes into the ground and damn near into the bench. > > [https://twitter.com/ActionNetworkHQ/status/1619893441164632065](https://twitter.com/ActionNetworkHQ/status/1619893441164632065) Seen it plenty of times and I stick by it. I know I’m in the minority here (and I trust you’ll believe me when I say I have no dog in this fight) so I’m not going to dig in on this. Here’s a replay that has more than 2 pixels in it (ignore the person’s comment, this was just the first Google result). > Mahomes turned the corner and is running up the sideline. Ossai can’t know if Mahomes if going to give up or keep going. We know every yard counts in this situation. If you go frame by frame you can see that Mahomes is still inbounds when Ossai initiates the contact. The players are moving so fast that by the time Ossai reaches full extension Mahomes is well out of bounds, but his hands initiate the push before he’s in the paint. And Mahomes absolutely rag-dolled on the ground to make sure he got the call. I accept that this probably gets called 9 times out of 10 these days (the other 1 being half of Jusitn Fields runs). But I don’t really agree that’s a good thing and it’s not making anyone safer or improving the game. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/106 "2023-01-30T05:52:39Z")
With more than two pixels to look at, that looks to me like contact happened at the same time as Mahomes touched out of bounds. That would not be a penalty by my standard of having to touch out of bounds before you get protection. But it’s been called that way for decades, so whaddya gonna do. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/107 "2023-01-30T05:56:36Z")
I see two feet out of bounds and a clear shove when he is well out of bounds. (At 0:52) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/TXWhxUCiTzg/maxresdefault.jpg "Joseph Ossai shoves Patrick Mahomes and Bengals staff") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXWhxUCiTzg) Good call. And, no, I don’t care one whit about Chiefs or Bengals. Was rooting Bills all the way. I just don’t see how you can not call this. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/108 "2023-01-30T05:59:48Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I see two feet out of bounds and a clear shove when he is well out of bounds. I do too and I was rooting for the Bengals. Look at the other Cincinnati player who was closer to Mahomes who backed away because he saw him going out. The push was egregious and avoidable and blatant. Good call. Also, not a flop. The arm pushing him was fully extended. Not a nudge where he faked it. It was a full shove. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/109 "2023-01-30T06:03:09Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > We can make the standard that the player isn’t out of bounds until part of his body touches out of bounds. So if he’s angling out of bounds and his final step on green carries him to the other side of the white, he’s not out (and protected against late hits) until his foot actually comes down on the white. You ninja’d me a bit here. This is a start (in fact I think you just described what the actual rule is today, but it’s not really enforced that way consistently), but it misses the point that I described above. The act of a push is not an instantaneous thing, and shit moves fast. I’m pretty confident that Mahomes was in bounds when Ossai’s hands first touch him to begin the push. He’s well out of bounds when his hands leave his body completing the shove. I simply don’t think there’s any way a defender can process this in real time, it ultimately comes down to a subjective call by the ref and that subjective opinion is heavily influenced by other factors (crowd reaction, who the players are, what the aftermath looks like, etc.) I don’t really want refs swallowing the whistle at the end of games (and they definitely do when it comes to holding and pass interference calls) but maybe personal fouls should require a closer look. We’ve had similar issues with flimsy late hits/roughing calls on QBs deciding big games and I think more often than not people don’t want a team to win/lose because of a glancing blow to a QBs head or a DL not inventing anti-gravity to avoid a bodyweight on the QB call. Sidelines really aren’t any different. 15-yard unnecessary roughness calls are vanishingly rare on the field of play and I think we tend to see a lot of examples of defenders giving a tackle some extra sauce in each game…but the sidelines tend to get a hair trigger. Seems arbitrary. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/110 "2023-01-30T06:08:22Z")
This is the start of the shove. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/dZxr4b4.png "Imgur: The magic of the Internet") ](https://imgur.com/dZxr4b4) @EllisDee’s description is spot on. It all depends on what you define as when the shove “happens”. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/111 "2023-01-30T06:13:11Z")
_shrug_ the shove I see is after that point. You see something different. I hate ticky tack calls but this one is blatant to me. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/112 "2023-01-30T06:19:56Z")
Isn’t that kind of disagreement about what happened a hallmark of “ticky tack”? I’ve been frame-by-framing this thing and I don’t think there’s any room for subjectivity on whether Ossai initiates contact while he’s still in bounds. The evidence is pretty clear on that. But…if you screen grab it when his arms are at full extension (below) it looks pretty hairy. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/wscpIQW.png "Imgur: The magic of the Internet") ](https://imgur.com/wscpIQW) Perhaps we don’t have a consensus about what a “shove” is. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/113 "2023-01-30T06:34:11Z")
Side note…did anyone notice what happens to Ossai’s knee in the aftermath of this? Amazed the dude walked off. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/exkAJyo.png "Imgur: The magic of the Internet") ](https://imgur.com/exkAJyo) ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/114 "2023-01-30T06:54:27Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Side note…did anyone notice what happens to Ossai’s knee in the aftermath of this? It was one hell of a self-own all around. I don’t think anyone felt worse after that game. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/115 "2023-01-30T12:39:22Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > They just showed the back judge blowing the play dead, but nobody saw him. Did I understand correctly that the back judge blew the play dead because the clock was running when it shouldn’t have been? That’s a clown move if I ever heard of one. The players are set, QB is under center, the crowd is deafening, 22 people are about to explode with intent, and you try to stop the play from 20 yards downfield, all to make sure the clock has the right time? Get the time correct once this play is done. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/116 "2023-01-30T13:08:52Z")
This is the second year in a row that Kansas City has won a key playoff because of circumstance rather than final effort. It isn’t their fault, of course. Last year, the Buffalo Bills were cheated out of what should have been a fair chance to respond to KC’s touchdown on the opening possession of overtime because of the rules, which since have been changed. This year, a bone-headed penalty with a mere 8 seconds left gave them a mid-range field goal and the victory. When the Bengals tied the game at 20, I announced, “The team that makes the last mistake will lose.” It turned out that way. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/117 "2023-01-30T13:27:04Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Last year, the Buffalo Bills were cheated out of what should have been a fair chance to respond to KC’s touchdown on the opening possession of overtime because of the rules, which since have been changed. To put on my homer hat, if the Bills had supported KC’s request to change that rule after the exact same thing happened to them the year before, they would have had a chance to respond. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/118 "2023-01-30T13:45:02Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Last year, the Buffalo Bills were cheated out of what should have been a fair chance to respond to KC’s touchdown on the opening possession of overtime because of the rules, which since have been changed. Four years ago, the Patriots beat the Chiefs in the AFC championship game by scoring a TD on the opening possession in overtime. Which is why KC made the request to change the OT rule, as stated by @Folacin. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/119 "2023-01-30T13:48:45Z")
The rules giveth, and the rules taketh away. LOL I’m just amazed at how long it took the NFL to change things. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2023, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794/120 "2023-01-31T18:20:23Z")
So, the Pro Bowl is pretty much a joke, and the league finally did away with the game itself, though there are still going to be a bunch of competitions for the “Pro Bowl Games” this week, including a flag football game. That said, adding to the “joke” part of it is that Ravens backup quarterback Tyler Huntley, who started four late-season games while starter Lamar Jackson was injured, was named to the Pro Bowl roster today. Huntley threw all of two TDs in his limited duty (and ran for another). There were, of course, some extenuating circumstances: - Patrick Mahomes was voted to be the AFC’s starter, but he’s in the Super Bowl, and thus, won’t be part of the Pro Bowl roster - Josh Allen was voted to be the AFC’s second-team QB, but he’s injured - All three of the alternates who were originally named (Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, and Jackson) are also injured So, the new alternates, named today, are Huntley, Trevor Lawrence (a pretty good pick), and Derek Carr (who was benched late in the season, as the Raiders wanted to avoid getting him injured before trying to trade him). > **[Ravens QB Huntley to Pro Bowl after 2-TD season](https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/35563722/qbs-tyler-huntley-trevor-lawrence-added-pro-bowl-rosters)** > > Ravens backup QB Tyler Huntley, who threw two TD passes in five regular-season games, has been added to the Pro Bowl roster. Quarterbacks Trevor Lawrence and Derek Carr also have been added. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nfl-2022-conference-championship-week/978794.md?page=7)