There’s no plausible way they could believe the play was still live. Multiple whistles were going off for several seconds, and refs were running into the play to wave it dead. If this was an actual correct interpretation of the rule, it may be the shittiest rule in the book.
I’ll see if I can find video but since no one seems to be talking about it I don’t know if I can, but if you watch the video it’s plain that everyone else pretty much stopped playing after the 3 seconds of whistling and arm waving. You can see from my images the change in posture.
I went to the Jets-Dolphins game at the Meadowlands yesterday. It was my first trip to the new stadium. Some notes:
– I don’t much like the new stadium. It’s certainly prettier and more impressive from the outside; the concourses are wider; the food options are (slightly) better; there are four large, hi-def screens for replays and the like. But I don’t really care about those things very much. What I do care about is that the seats are further away from the field than at Giants Stadium, which was built vertically: you might have a pretty terrifying climb to your seats, but once you got there you’d be right on top of the field. Also, since the ticket prices and (especially) personal seat licences cleared out a lot of the blue-collar die hards, for inclement-weather games like yesterday’s there are a lot of empty seats in the pricier sections. In the “cheap” seats* the turnout was near 100%, but in the mezzanine and near midfield in the lower level at least a third of the seats were empty. Boo.
– I was sitting in the same section as “Fireman Ed” (this guy; I’m sure you’ve seen him if you’ve ever watched a Jets game). I hear that he’s a huge asshole, which I absolutely believe, but I must give the man some credit: the Jets have 32 half-naked dancers on the field but only one cheerleader. He really does get the crowd going. Interestingly, the J-E-T-S chants aren’t prompted by the big screens or the sound system. What typically happens is that Ed gets everyone’s attention and orchestrates the chant, which probably about half the stadium is aware of. *Then *the camera finds him and puts him on the screen for his second orchestration, and everyone gets a chance to play along.
– The actual Jets cheerleaders are worse than useless. At the two-minute warning, with the Jets needing to go about 70 yards for a game-winning touchdown, the cheerleaders came out and did a big dance routine in each endzone, and absolutely *murdered *the crowd in the process. Seriously, everyone was sitting down, indifferent, and barely even aware when the break ended and the Jets resumed their all-important drive.
– Mark Sanchez looked really bad, but I must say that the receivers weren’t exactly creating a lot of separation. They’re a talented group, so I have to assume that some of the fault lies with the designs and play-calling of the OC.
“Cheap” is relative, of course; my end-zone, field-level seat 30 rows up had a face value of $120.
I’m sure you’re right, but I’ve never seen a flag get thrown because a player was going after a loose ball (or even blocking an opposing player in a loose ball situation), no matter how long the whistles have been blowing.
Well, to be fair, it looked like it was just an incomplete pass. The arm was hit when he was about to throw it and it bounced forward. All the offensive players knew was that a ball was skipping on the ground past them and officials were emphatically declaring the play dead. There was no reason to suspect a fumble.
You know how sometimes you see defenders casually picking up deflected passes or other incomplete passes just in case? It was basically like that, only it turned out it was a fumble.
I’ve never seen anything like it - all other cases of early whistle/fumble issues were where a pile quickly formed on top of the loose ball and everyone knew the play might be a fumble. In this case everyone had every reason to believe it was a dead play, and acted like it - and then the officials ruled on the results that were changed due to their intervention in the play.
With Tom Brady at QB, the Patriots are now 32-4 in games played below 40 degrees F, including the postseason. They haven’t turned the ball over once in 5 games, and Brady hasn’t thrown a pick in 6.
And they get home field all the way to the Super Bowl.
Yeah, it seems like there should be a way for the refs to declare that too much time had passed – or there were too many indifferent players – for them to credit the defense with a fumble recovery on replay.
Er, yeah, but they had to contend with an actual injustice, not a broadcasting gaffe.
You know the game happened correctly and it was just the broadcasters fuckup, right? The guys with the first down markers walked off the field because it was goal to go.
Plus, you know, your team won. So I think I’d take your “at least” scenario as preferable sir.
Mike and Mike had a stat this morning that was something like: in games Brady plays in the snow, the Patriots have outscored the competition 102-0 at halftime.
You can go back a page and read my original posts on the matter, which clearly detail why is was. And that Orakpo play was arguably a hold, but was certainly no worse than any of the dozen holds not called on the 'Skins.
If you go back yourself and read the responding posts you’d see that your perception wasn’t the reality.
Arguably?
It’s a moot point now, and I’m in no way suggesting that that one missed call cost the Redskins the game, but if you’re going to continue to whine about a team benefiting from a mistake, first make sure that there actually was a mistake (there wasn’t, except by FOX), and then make sure your team didn’t benefit from a mistake, like, oh, say, scoring its go ahead TD after a blatant hold was not called by a back judge who claims not to have seen it because he was looking at a part of the field he shouldn’t have been.
Odd, because it looks just like another play that was called a hold in week one and negated a game winning TD, but hey, you obviously have your own definition of reality so we’ll just agree to disagree that a guy standing behind another guy with his arm around his neck doesn’t impede him.
To close out the “5th down” discussion:
Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post breaks it down here.
For more neutral coverage, USA Today covers it here.
And just in case you were wondering what a Florida based paper might say, the Miami Herald covers it here.
The confusion stems from the first down marker inexplicably being at 9 yards instead of the requisite 10. When Armstrong caught the 9 yard pass, it was a marked as a first down. No one on the field caught the mistake and play resumed as if it were a first down.
Whether it being 1st and goal from the 3 vs. 2nd and 1 and the 3 would have changed the play-calling and ultimate result… who knows? It doesn’t matter at this point as it appears football justice was served by their missing the extra point and losing anyway.
Orakpo is falling down in the play you think looks just like it.
The Associated Press is not a “Florida-based newspaper” (and the various Florida newspapers are rarely sympathetic to their local teams, let alone the other state teams). If you have NFL Rewind, you can go back and watch the replay; Armstrong clearly didn’t gain 9 yards, let alone 10. However, if Raheem’s good with it, I don’t care - and as you say, it’s a moot point.
Go figure, he’s got an offensive lineman trying to get a piggy back ride.
Ah, my bad. That clearly disputes my point and the point made by several sports writers and isn’t at all a straw man.
Not being from Florida, I guess I falsely assumed that a Florida based newspaper wouldn’t run a story written by the AP that lied about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
He was clearly at 2.5 yard line, the 3 at absolute worst… both of which were good enough for where the marker was mistakenly placed.
