The Hogan hit also happened right as Brady left the pocket. During a scramble (a.k.a. outside the pocket), receivers no longer have illegal contact protection.
I’m sure refs saw Gronk’s shove, but OPI is never called on a Hail Mary. I could tell you about one such play, but the salt hasn’t completely left my speech when I discuss it.
Officials often pick up a flag without a penalty being called. In that situation, it would certainly cause an immediate uproar, but as soon as someone went back to watch the replay and saw what the penalty MIGHT have been, it would die down quickly.
I thought the toss winner had four choices: “Kick,” “Receive,” “Defend North goal,” “Defend South goal.” But New England won the toss and exercised a fifth option — “Defer.” Am I confused?
If you want to kick, say Kick. If you want to pick a goal, Pick it! What’s with Defer ?? In what settings of the game matrix can this ever be best?
When I saw this peculiar New England response to a simple coin toss, I knew it was all over for Brady and the Batriots.
(I watched the S’Bowl via #BBCNFL. During the commercials, they have commentary by Osi Umenyiora and Jason Bell.)
The option to defer wasn’t introduced in the NFL until 2008. Most teams that win the coin toss now elect to defer. The current conventional wisdom in the NFL is that it’s preferable to have the ball to start the second half for a couple of reasons:
It potentially gives you the opportunity for two consecutive possessions, and possibly two consecutive scores (if you wind up having possession at the end of the first half, and score then, as well)
At the start of the second half, you have more information about what’s working (and not working) in the game, and are able to make better use of the possession than you would have if you received the opening kickoff
And, interestingly, it was Belichick who was among the pioneers in opting to defer.
That’s not entirely accurate. The choices per the rulebook are:
Now, one team the makes the choice in the first half, and the other team make the choice in the second half. Which means you could actually choose to kickoff in the first half, and then the other team could choose to receive the ball in the second half. Obviously, that’s bad, so whenever you have the choice, you will choose to receive. Deferring just means, “I’ll give you guys the choice first and we’ll choose in the second half.”
So let’s imagine situation where Team A wins the coin flip. Unfortunately, the captain is an idiot. He knows they want to kick off the ball to start the game, but he forgets that he is supposed to say he wants to defer. So he tells the ref they want to kick-off. Team B says great, we’ll take the east goal. Then, before the second half, the ref goes to Team B first, and says, “What do you choose?” Obviously, they choose to receive the ball. So Team A just lost the chance to receive the ball at the start of either half. That’s the point of deferring. It’s saying, “Team B, you choose first, and we’ll choose at the start of the second half.”
Even given the choice you don’t need to receive the kick. You could win the flip and defer, so you kick the first half kickoff. Then in the second half you could choose to kick. It’s theoretically possible for a team never to kickoff in the game if they don’t score and the other team elects to kick when they get to pick.
Yes, and I have seen it many other times. Defensive players want the glory of an interception. I think if they don’t return it past the line of scrimmage, they should not get credit for the pick.
And don’t get me started on the players who return INTs, punts, or kickoffs out of the end zone when they have no chance to get past the ten yard line.
Yes, you are. If you start to run the ball out of the end zone, and then get tackled, I think that that would be a safety, but if you take a knee right away (like a kickoff returner might), it’s a touchback.
It would be like if a ball carrier fumbles into the endzone and a defender falls on it. That is a touchback. Basically, a change of possession within the endzone is either a TD (for the defense) or, at the other end, a touchback. Hence, the fumble-through rule that some people seem to think is fair actually makes sense.
Except if an interception is made in the field of play but that player’s “natural momentum” (I don’t know the language of the rule) carries him into the end zone before he has a chance to change direction, if he’s then tackled in the end zone, even though he gained possession before the end zone it is a touchback.
Yes, you can take a touchback - unless you catch the ball in the end zone, run out, and ***then ***retreat back into the end zone again and get tackled. That’s a safety.
After making a field goal, the Eagles kicked a short kickoff which forced the returner to come out of the end zone to catch it. New England then tried to get cute with a couple of laterals to confuse Philly and get some yardage. The Eagles weren’t fooled at all and the Patriots were brought down all the way back at the 7 yard line. All they did was waste precious seconds they couldn’t afford at that point.
That’s not a good example though, because there wasn’t any chance of a touchback in that kickoff. The Eagles brilliantly kicked it short, taking that option away, and covered it beautifully. It was a really good special teams effort that didn’t give Brady much room to stage a comeback. I’m sure you remember the end result.
Am I confused?
