# rams/bucs/football/replay question **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 24, 2000, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341 "2000-01-24T09:16:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2000, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341/41 "2000-01-26T02:57:00Z")
Shayna said: [QUOTE] Originally posted by Shayna: 4.) The Bucs’ own quarterback doesn’t blame their loss on one supposedly bad call. King is a rookie quarterback and did an awesome job leading his team to the playoffs. He has a lot to be commended for, as does the Bucs’ defense for holding the Rams to their lowest score since early last year… King is even quoted as having said that his team “[didn’t hold] up its end,” and that he would have served his team better if he’d have thrown the ball away to avoid lost yardage on two of the sacks. He further went on to say he “obviously didn’t play well enough for us to win.” Thats called good sportsmanship. And the call was terrible! * * * Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2000, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341/42 "2000-01-26T15:31:00Z")
Omniscient, one of the nasty little secrets to officiating in sports is that the ‘rules’ aren’t all the rules. I have refereed real football (we call it soccer, here) for several years. When I took my first course in the laws, I approached it from the standpoint that the laws, and the official decisions published with the laws, were the whole word. Nothing could be further from the truth! The law regarding offside has a whole subset of interpretations that aren’t written down anywhere, but get handed down to you from on high. Presumably, they even differ from location to location (England to Brazil, say). From my converse with officials of other sports, even those with horribly complicated rules covering everything imaginable (have you ever actually seen the official rules of baseball, including all the decisions??) still have gaps that are filled with unwritten interpretations, taught to officials when they enter a league or a level. It is this that I have in mind when I say that the situation makes me think there is something in the ‘rules’ that makes the fact the ball touched first dispositive. Of course, you’ll note that, with the exception of a few column inches in Monday’s editions, no one is devoting any more press to this that I see, and no one from the NFL has issued an official explanation of the ruling. Maybe they simply blew it… ---
**Author:** ![ConMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6f9a4e/32.png) [@ConMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ConMan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2000, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341/43 "2000-01-26T16:21:00Z")
It was my understanding that the decision to look at the play came from upstairs, not on the field. With less than 2 minutes to go, the decision to review comes from an official in a booth adjacent to the press box (Stupid rule but probably designed to prevent defenses the opportunity to take a breather and snap momentum). Nevermind that the 70,000+ fans in the stands, the 50+ players on both sidelines and the 10 officials on the field thought that the play was a catch! One guy, 3-stories up with a pair of binocualars decides to review the play?! A very, very bad call. Did it change the outcome? I guess we’ll never know will we? * * * “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’” E A Poe ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2000, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341/44 "2000-01-26T16:22:00Z")
Bricker posted: > [@](#): > > Shayna, > I am absolutely dismayed at your post, above. It shows a complete lack of consideration. You address every point cogently and completely, leaving me no room to even weasel, much less argue coherently. Well, Bricker, my friend, you’ve bested me so many times in discussions where, by all rights, I should have been the “expert” (ie: the religion I was raised in and practice), I thought it only fair that the tables get turned at least once 😉 And since it’s not likely I’ll be able to repeat this phenomenon, I’m going to revel in this for a while, if you don’t mind (tee hee). weirddave posted: > [@](#): > > Thats called good sportsmanship. Which is more than I can say for some of their fans, unfortunately. ::Sigh:: [The stats](http://www2.nando.net/newsroom/ap/fbo/1995/nfl/ram/sums/ram.html) would indicate that King was also speaking the simple truth. Peace, Shayna * * * “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2000, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341/45 "2000-01-28T06:20:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Nevermind that the 70,000+ fans in the stands, the 50+ players on both sidelines and the 10 officials on the field thought that the play was a catch! One guy, 3-stories up with a pair of binocualars decides to review the play?! A very, very bad call. The guy three stories up didn’t reverse the call, he only called for the review. The criteria for reviewing a play **should** be less severe than the criteria for reversing a call. He did his job correctly; get off his back. It’s the official on the field who actually reversed the call. If you’re going to blame someone for a bad call, it’s him, not the guy in the booth. ## That said, I’m surprised there hasn’t been much in the press about this call, and why it was made. It looked to me like it was a completed pass. The amazing thing to me is that it’s suposed to be _indisputable_ evidence before they reverse a call. _It is too clear, and so it is hard to see._ ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2000, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341/46 "2000-01-28T22:14:00Z")
In today’s USA Today, there is an article regarding the use of replays to over-rule calls on the field. The NFL’s senior director of officiating, Jerry Seeman (himself a wonderful referee before he retired to work for the NFL) is quoted as saying that the pass was ‘incomplete by rule when the nose of the ball touched the ground as Emanuel landed’ (quoting here _USA Today_, not Seeman (his statment in the paper was not quoted exactly). This is precisely what I theorized to be true in my first post in this thread. I do NOT claim to be an expert on the NFL’s rules, so I can’t say WHY the official rule would be such, but the play was NOT a complete catch under the definitions used by the NFL. The official upstairs, Jerry Markbreit, understood that quite quickly, and the referee on the field, Bill Corollo, apparently agreed. End of discussion. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2000, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341/47 "2000-01-28T23:49:00Z")
DSYoungEsq wrote: > [@](#): > > the pass was ‘incomplete by rule when the nose of the ball touched the ground as Emanuel landed’ (quoting here _USA Today_ If _USA Today_ is correct, and a pass is ruled incomplete if the ball touches the ground, whether the receiver has control of the ball or not, then I gotta ask: What if he’d caught the ball, took one step, and _then_ fell and had the ball touch the ground? Would it be complete then? What has to happen after a receiver gets control of the ball before the ball touching the ground will no longer make the pass incomplete? * * * The truth, as always, is more complicated than that. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341/48 "2000-01-29T21:33:00Z")
I was not quoting _USA Today_, I was quoting _USA Today_ ‘quoting’ Jerry Seeman, the NFL director of officiating. Your question is best addressed to Jerry Seeman, since he seems to know. My own, admittedly uneducated opinion (as you will note, I don’t profess to know the rules of the NFL in detail) would be that the possession (control) of the ball with a foot on the ground would result in a different ruling. In this regard, note that (based on what I have seen ruled), a player with control of the ball who then places both feet in bounds is ruled to have made a catch, but there is no catch if the ball is not in control when the feet are down. Why doesn’t someone call the NFL and ask? 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rams-bucs-football-replay-question/17341.md?page=2)