I’ve heard this sentiment a lot, and I wish there was a site I could visit to track the stick-to-it-ive-ness of the boycotters. “Honestly - I might not” isn’t the sort of language that’ll keep NFL’s advertisers up at night. 
The worst part, for me, is that the simultaneous catch ruling was the least-wrong. IMHO, it was a correct call, but the push-off should have been called, too. (BTW, Jennings, bat the fucking ball away, you idiot.)
What shouldn’t have been called were the “roughing” the passer negating a GB interception, and the “defensive” pass interference against GB when it was either nothing at all or OPI. There were a few other things, too.
Here’s a link to the play and the refs, standing side by side, giving different calls.
Strategy question regarding the Packers-Seahawks:
The only bit of football I’ve watched is the replay of the controversial play. I’m wondering why the Packers player attempted to catch the ball at all. Wouldn’t it have been easier to bat the ball down or out of bounds? I’m left thinking that by trying to catch the ball, he made it possible for the Seahawks player to grab at the ball too.
Officiating aside, what should the Packers player have done? Try to catch the ball? or try to smack it out of play?
He should have batted the ball down. They are so keyed up to get that INT though that it’s tempting to go for the ball.
Bat it down. At least that’s what you are coached to do.
On rare, rare occasions, that bites you in the ass (see Texans@Jags 2010), but you usually just want to bat the ball down.
Of course, that could be the situation here. In this case, it could be he thought there was no clean angle to bat the ball down that wouldn’t risk a Seattle catch. Or just trying to be a hero.
Batting the ball occasionally results in it going straight into a receiver’s arms, so in a crowd it makes sense to go for the pick.
On Sunday, the Lions were down by 7 with less than 20 seconds and fired a hail mary into the end zone. A Tennessee defender batted the ball away from the receiver – but right into the arms of another Lions player, who scored and forced overtime.
Unless you bat the ball to a receiver.
Beaten to it, but the point stands. The guy didn’t return a pick and fumble it away. He caught it with the receiver right there and he should’ve been credited with the pick.
Ah, Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
But what about whipping it out of play? I don’t know if that was possible in the given situation, but they were in the end zone, so out of bounds couldn’t have been very far away.
But they could run it back for a touchdown couldn’t they? If so, the extra point attempt was not meaningless.
Yes, he could’ve tried to knock it up in the air or turn around at the height of his jump in the middle of a crowd and tried to whip the thing four yards backward. Or he could just catch the thing since it hit him in the chest.
No:
On top of the division tied with the Vikings. Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, Bears fan. In fact, since the Bears have a division loss and the Vikings don’t, you can make the case that he Vikings actually stand alone at the top, ahead of the Bears. (And yes, we Vikes fans have to enjoy this while we can - I have no delusions it’s going to last very long.)
Please view the following linked picture to eliminate this hypothesis. Tate is on the ground, underneath Jennings. Jennings has the ball wrapped in his arms. Tate has one hand on top of Jennings’ hands and the other arm wrapped around Jennings’ neck. Simultaneous possession? I don’t think so.
Does it make a difference since the original refs would still be working while they were negotiating, except the NFL and the owners locked them out? The refs aren’t on strike. The league is refusing to let them work. You may still call these guys scabs, but let’s make sure we know who’s responsible.
No. The defensive team can never score on an extra point attempt:
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So the Jennings makes a great play, leaps highest, intercepts the ball and folks are saying he is the one who screwed up? Classic.
I’m not saying he screwed up, I’m asking about strategy. It isn’t a matter of good versus bad, but good versus better. Going into the play, not knowing precisely what will happen, what should the mindset be? Try and catch the ball or try and knock the ball down? To my untrained eye, it seems that catching the ball is harder. What if he tried to catch the ball, but failed and that led to a legitimate touchdown? I’m not asking about what happened, I’m asking about the entire space of what could have happened and what strategies should be employed.
I recognize that he got screwed; I’m not asking about that.
No, but everyone but the guy involved knows the right play is to bat it down. In the same way that when a guy intercepts the ball at the end of the game he always tries to run it… until everyone on his team says to take a knee. It’s just a hard habit to break even when you know in your head what the right thing to do is.
It’s a fair question to ask. Great plays aren’t just about who jumps highest, they’re also about doing the right thing at the right time. If batting the ball down is the preferred technique for the situation he was in, he should have batted it down instead of catching it.
I think the situation was such that catching was a reasonable choice. If he was more clear, batting is a good choice because there’s no chance of a bobble, and you can direct the ball out of bounds. If he was less clear, catching is not much of an option, so a batted ball is your best bet.
What if Elvis appeared in the endzone on a cloud and took Golden Tate away to Care-a-Lot? Going for the catch is not any riskier than batting the ball down.
Additionally, noted for completeness: the defense can’t even score on a recovered 2-point conversion; the recovered ball would be dead and the conversion attempt would be ruled “no good.”
There is such a thing as a “conversion safety” for 1 point, however that 1 point would still go to the offense.
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