The miscommunication part and the wrong route doesn’t matter, if there’s no receiver in the area there’s no receiver in the area. What makes the call wrong was Smith wasn’t facing any pressure. A similar call was made on Matthew Stafford vs the 49ers where he threw it deep but the receiver broke short, but Stafford had a defender in his face when he threw.
Correct.
It is a foul for intentional grounding if a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage because of pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion. A realistic chance of completion is defined as a pass that is thrown in the direction of and lands in the vicinity of an originally eligible receiver.
Bolding mine. What happened on Sunday was a pretty routine miscommunication. (Well, hopefully not too routine for Geno in particular… 
)
One of the Steelers special-teams player did a strange thing where he tip-tapped his toes just in bounds - clearly intentionally - to stay in bounds while catching a kickoff.
That caused Pittsburgh to get the ball at the 9-yard line instead of the 40, given that the ball was clearly headed out of bounds and would have gone out had he either not touched it at all, or caught it with at least one foot out of bounds.
I didn’t catch that (and I only watched the last part of the game so I might not have seen it at all). Was this person normally a receiver? If so, that might have been an instinct because you are taught to do that as a receiver.
But that was clearly a mistake, you want that ball going out of bounds so you can capitalize on the penalty.
The ball doesn’t even have to go out of bounds, as long as some part of the receiver’s body is out of bounds. Even though the announcers always compliment the player for a “brilliant play”, any player with half a brain knows to do this. No excuse for that idiotic move.
Here’s the play from last night:
You could see Tomlin in that clip just thinking “DAMMIT!” in his head.
Gunner is a WR but if he’s that dumb he should not be receiving kickoffs.
And that would have been a highlight reel catch if that had been a passing attempt.
Kickoff reception, not so much. Clearly, he lost situational awareness and reverted to receiver instincts. Complete with the celebration of the catch, until he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.
Both games were close last night. That was the only redeemable aspect of each game, because neither of them was very entertaining. Unless you were a Saints or Steelers fan.
Jalen Hurts and Joe Burrow next week. Will both come out of it okay, or is this a Thunderdome situation?
It’s like the Madden Curse on steroids.
There’s a good chance that Burrow won’t play next week.
That’s wise. Throw out a sacrificial lamb to satisfy the bloodthirsty and vengeful Monday Night Football deity.
I think he realized his mistake immediately and was pantomiming throwing a penalty flag for an out-of-bounds kickoff, in a desperate attempt to make the ref think he was out.
Under the new NFL kickoff rules, if he had signalled for a fair catch it would have been a touchback and the Steelers would have gotten the ball at the 25. So he had 2 chances to not be an idiot.
Colts tight end Kylen Granson scored his first career touchdown on Sunday against the Houston Texans.
And he’s got jokes.
This is a reason why the beginning of the season is cool. You get to hear so many “This is his first game!” stories, or “His first score in the NFL!”
The Commanders might be looking at another name change. I look forward to months of whining about “change” and “history” followed by a new bland name that everyone hates.
Months? Some people are gonna keep that shit up in comments sections until they die.
In one of the more bizarre stories so far this year, Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Alan Williams has resigned from the team after his home was raided by the FBI. Of course, he uses the old “focus on my health and family”, but the timing is quite suspect. Should be interesting to see what really is going on. If it is just his health, here’s hoping he gets well soon.
Evidently Halas Hall was also raided by the FBI (no news on whether Charles Tillman was in on it or not). There is speculation that it involves child pornography but I haven’t seen any confirmation on that so it’s probably wisest to stay away from that angle until further information becomes available.