Well, first of all, Bryant does not take three steps. He jumps, lands on both fleet, and takes one step. Landing from a jump is not a “step.”
To be honest, upon watching the replay in slo mo and from a few different angles, I’ve changed my mind. It should be been ruled a catch. Bryant lands on both feet after making the catch, and his subsequent step is to at least some extent a football move, so in my opinion the catch was made after both his feet landed from the jump. His fall after landing on his feet and taking a step COULD be considered a continuous motion from the act of catching - we can argue it either way - but it also might not, and one of the principles of instant replay is that the evidence must irrefutably demonstrate the call on the field was wrong.
Football’s rules are, to some extent necessarily, extremely complex; I don’t think you can simplify the rules too much without simply creating more absurdities in the future. In this case I think they blew it anyway.
(Bolding mine)
After looking at that angle, it seems pretty clear that the ball popped loose as he first hit the ground, not when he tried to lunge forward into the end zone as I previously thought.
This is the order I’m seeing:
1)He catches the football cleanly.
2)Maintains possession and control over the ball for the 3 steps he was upright.
3)Maintains possession and control over the football as hes going down.
4)Hits the ground with his upper body. His knees do not touch the ground.
5)The ball hits the ground and moves. He still has possession but not control.
6)Both of his knees hit the ground.
7)The ball is loose.
8)He grabs the ball as he rolls across the goal line.
So this is my question: Can someone explain why it wasn’t a fumble?
If the sequence of events was exactly the same, but he caught the ball on, say, the 8 yard line and ran for 7 yards before going to the ground, I think it would have been a fumble? Or does the ball actually have to pop loose for it to be a fumble?
It’s not a fumble because it’s an incomplete pass under the “going to the ground” rule. He caught the ball while jumping, and it touched the ground and came loose when he landed. His feet/knees/elbows touching the ground are all irrelevant. He can’t fumble the ball because there was never a completed pass; the play is over when the ball touches the ground.
If he had caught the ball on the 8 and then ran to the 7, fell, and dropped the ball, it would be a fumble (or down by contact) because the fall is a separate action from the catch. For Dez’s play to be ruled this way, you basically have to claim that he landed from his jump and then for some reason separately decided to dive when he could have just run into the end zone.
I do understand the difference. But the risk of running plays was not very high. How often does a team fumble the ball and turn it over in a play that’s designed to be safe? Keep in mind they didn’t need to advance the ball or make a first down - all they needed to do was burn up five seconds per play. I doubt there was a five percent chance of New England losing the ball if they had just run some meaningless plays of moving the ball around.
The risk of intentionally turning the ball over to Baltimore and giving Flacco a chance to throw it in the endzone was much higher.
In those situations the defense is working hard to stand up the runner and rip the ball out. Belichick weighed the options and felt that the risk of a fumble was significant enough that at the field position they were in it would cost them the game.
This, however, is not correct. He did not have control during that time, from one angle you can see the ball slipping past his elbow, a clear sign that he did not have control. Basically, he has altered the trajectory of the ball significantly, but both he and the ball are still essentially falling together. Then he slams the ball into the ground. It is all one continuous motion, he did not have control of the ball until shortly before it hit the ground. The “football move” has to happen after he has established control of the ball.
It doesn’t matter whether he has control at that point or not. The ball comes loose when it touches the ground, so it’s incomplete, regardless of any control he had prior to that.
After watching it in slow motion and frame-by-frame, it helps to go back and watch it at full speed to get a real sense of how it went down. The slow-mo really distorts the viewer’s perspective.
The dispute is what constitutes “going to ground.” That is to say; what makes a receiver having gone to ground? At what point has Bryant completed that action?
My impression of the play, and interpreting it against the rules, is that Bryant has gone to ground after he has taken one step beyond landing. The catch is therefore complete at that point. I do not see irrefutable evidence in the replay that the refs were initially wrong in calling it a catch.
That’s not a hard argument to make, because it appears he is doing that, largely because he’s in immediate contact with a defensive player. He does not simply fall to the ground, that’s for sure, or else he’d have fallen backwards. He clearly turns, lands, takes a step and dives. But his reason for doing so isn’t relevant; the point is it might have been a legal catch, so it should not have been overturned.
That’s how I see it (and I’ve stated as such). Whatever the call was on the field, complete or incomplete, should have stood, in my opinion. The fact that there is so much disagreement in this thread as to whether Dez made a move or not after the catch (I also think he did, others in this thread do not) underscores how not incontrovertible it was, in my opinion. Then again, we are not professional referees, and maybe it was obviously and clearly a continuous motion to all of them. That’s not what I see, though.
Well, I’ll grant that, solely looking at the written rules, that’s not a completely indefensible interpretation. However, the clear, long-established practice in the NFL is that ‘going to the ground’ includes all of the act of falling and coming to rest on the ground, not just the next ground contact after getting two feet down. Find a clip of a receiver stretching for a ball, catching it, stumbling three steps out of control, then falling and losing the ball. I guarantee you, they’ll get up in disgust and walk back to the original line of scrimmage, not jump up celebrating a completion.
One thing that drove me nuts was on Monday, when Mike & Mike were going on and on about how he was being punished for making extra effort, as if that’s anathema to football.
How many times have we seen a running back refuse to go down, and during that extra effort has the ball stripped away? Come on, man, extra effort is routinely punished in the game of football. Bring a better argument than that.
As for whether it was a catch or not, to me it was clear as day, 100% no doubt whatsoever, that it was incomplete.
I think the rule should be if you land with both feet and control of the ball it’s a completion. The definition of a football move is to take a step or dive for the sideline or a first down and so theoretically a receiver could catch a pass on the 1 yard line and stand there letting the clock wind down. No matter how long he stands there, if a defenseman hits him and the ball pops loose under the rules it is an incomplete pass. Even if they turn and they do not attempt to advance the ball it is incomplete. A receiver could catch the ball and their momentum make them take 6 steps back to the line of scrimmage - not a football move and so not a complete pass.
I think you’re seriously reaching for a hypothetical that will never, ever exist in the real world to solve a problem that isn’t a problem. There is absolutely no situation where what you posit would occur.
