No, the Jags will see to Pittsburgh.
So blame the coaches for being confused and miscommunicating.
what happened to the rule that play is dead when the knee hits the ground? Also I thought the ground cannot cause a fumble.
It worked for the Steelers last year against the Cowboys.
That’s the same info I linked above, different site. The thing is, I clearly recall Ben signalling fake spike running to the line, and even faking a spike, but I can’t find a video that has the whole run-up…so I may have that wrong.
Wow, that is a really painful way to lose. At home. To your hated rival. Who has now beaten you five times in a row. Ouch.
He wasn’t touched by anyone, so the play’s not dead in the NFL. College, yes.
It can’t cause a fumble, but it can cause an incomplete pass. He wasn’t a runner so it wasn’t a fumble.
Actually, I have this exact thought. While one can perhaps conclude that it is very likely it touched the ground, I saw no replay that actually shows ball touching ground, mostly because his right hand/arm is in the way of the camera. Maybe there’s a replay view I missed.
Still, in all likelihood, the ball did touch the ground, and I think the actions of the receiver after the play showed he was a bit worried about the result, which means he probably realized it hit the ground at some point, too.
His hand was underneath it the whole time. It was a bullshit call.
It was a correct call. His left hand clearly came off the ball, which started rotating, and his right hand was on the side of the ball, not under it. Unless his fingers are a foot long, the ball was on the ground.
It makes no sense that the call is different for a catch vs. a guy running with the ball for the ground not causing a fumble or incomplete pass. Was this a recent rule change for passes?
Also I thought once the ball breaks the endzone plane, the play is dead but I guess not.
Actually it makes perfect sense. If you hand the ball to a guy and he drops it the ball is live and can be picked up by the other team. However, if you’re in the process of catching the ball and the ball drops i,t’s a dead ball (incomplete pass). So the question becomes when does the second situation turn into the first situation? The NFL has (not surprisingly) set rules on this. A receiver becomes a runner (catch complete, any drop is a fumble) after establishing possession by fully controlling the ball and making a ‘football move’. But falling to the ground is hardly a football move (even though it happens a lot), so they’ve set a special rule for that and said that you must get and maintain control of the ball all the way through the act
of falling and hitting the ground. The Steeler receiver got the first part, but failed the second. As noted above, had he kept his feet, tried a juke or lowered his shoulder (i.e., a football move), and then fallen, it likely would have been ruled (correctly, IMHO) a touchdown. As it was, it was correctly (again, IMHO) ruled an incomplete pass. Hate it for the Steelers, but let’s remember that they had another chance and blew it. That was NOT the play that ended the game.
This is true for a runner in possession of the ball. But when catching a pass you must complete the catch to have possession. The definition of completing a pass is that if you are falling to the ground as a result of the catch you must “survive the ground”, ie, maintain control the entire time. The ball can’t touch the ground when it’s not under control and it did so in this case.
Incidentally, the Pats were the recipients of a favorable version of this call near the beginning of season, when Brandon Cooks caught a pass going out of bounds. But he bobbled the ball upon hitting the ground; it should have been ruled incomplete but it wasn’t. Such are the breaks.
If you’re not familiar with this rule, check out the Calvin Johnson application of the rule. This is from seven years ago and the first time I remember it being a thing. I’m from Chicago, so I root for the Bears, but I’ve always felt Megatron got robbed on that one.
That was the “non-catch” that got us started on this years-long bullshit of attempting to define a catch. No one but the most diehard Lions hater (who are the Lions’ rival, anyway?) would call that incomplete.
Bears fan also. I watched that game. Although I was happy that the Bears won, it felt rather dirty. I believe that was the first year of the new rule. Here’s the thing, if you hand the ball to a RB and he lunges, and the ball crosses the plane, and the ball hits the ground, and he loses control, it’s still a touchdown. So when the receiver catches the ball, has control (possession), the receiver has possession and the ball has crossed the plane, instant touchdown, just like a running back. Why ignore a RB’s loss of control but not a receivers’?
Because establishing control after a pass is different than establishing control after a handoff. Not saying it should be that way, but that’s the way the rules are. One big difference is that in the running back situation, a fumble is a live ball; in the receiver situation, a fumble is a dead ball unless you establish that the pass is complete and the receiver becomes a runner. Instantaneous possession isn’t yet a thing, or you’d just need to get both hands on the ball in the endzone for it to be a touchdown. Having “control” of the ball for a fraction of a second in the endzone would be enough for a touchdown since at that point the play is over.
I’m asking why the rules are different. In my RB example, it’s not a fumble. The ball crosses the plane with possession, play over, dead ball, any subsequent actions are moot. A receiver catches the ball (control/possession) in the end zone (the ball has crossed the plane), but it’s not play over, dead ball. I know that’s the rule, by why is that the rule? Why is the play instantly over when a RB passes the ball over the goal line with possession, but not a receiver? Why should the nature of a RB passing the plane with possession be different than a receiver possessing the ball over the plane be different? Why must a RB not have to maintain possession, and a receiver must? I know it’s almost an unanswerable question, but has any league official at least offered justification for the “Catch Rule”?
(my bolding) Because he has NOT established control/possession just because both he’s momentarily holding the ball securely. That’s not what the rules say. It says he either has to make a football move, or go to the ground and maintain possession as/after he hits the ground, or get both feet inbounds before he runs out of bounds. If anything else happens, he never had possession of the ball, as possession is defined by the NFL rules, even though by a layman’s definition of “catch” it appears that he did.
As to why they wrote the rules that way - because they thought that’s what was needed to keep the game more competitive & entertaining.
Well, it is certainly entertaining. If that was their goal, at least in part, they succeeded admirably.