I saw the game and I’m not an unreasonable fan. If the play was bad; it was bad. At worst it was a catch and fumble in the endzone (which he recovered). You can see on line identical plays that were not over turned. This was a bad call. But anyway. On to next week.
As a fan outside of the Pittsburgh area I think this is the longest run of regular season games I will have been able to watch on TV. Next week will be like the 6th game in a row that will be available to me (although I might miss this one due to plans on Christmas).
If you had the rule the way you describe it, as soon as a receiver has two hands on a ball in the end zone, you’d have to rule the play over and it would be a touchdown. The instant you have possession in the end zone it’s a touchdown, right? But that would lead to plays where a casual observer would disagree on the definition of possession; does it have to be for more than a fleeting second? Does it have to survive a hit by a defender? How long does he have to have his hands on the ball for it to count? You need some way to distinguish between momentarily controlling the ball and “possession”. The NFL way includes going to the ground; it doesn’t need to use that specific criteria but it does need some criteria.
The basic idea is that you’d have some touchdowns that people would question whether the receiver truly had possession. You need to put some criteria on the process of establishing possession and whether it’s a live ball that you don’t need to do for a runner with the ball. The runner is assumed to have possession and the ball is live.
No. Just like a RB thrusting the ball over the goal line doesn’t have to be more than a fleeting second.
Two hands on the ball, two feet down, why would it have to survive a hit by a defender? It’s an instant touchdown, much like a RB breaking the plane doesn’t have to survive a hit from a defender.
It’s instant, much like a RB thrusting the ball over the goal line.
Momentary control of the ball in the endzone is possession and a touchdown.
The same criteria as a RB going to the ground.
I’m not sure what this means, but two hands, two feet down is a touchdown, or at least should be, IMO. If a receiver has two hands on the ball, clearly possessing it, has two feet down in the field of play, and is pushed OOB, the play, at least it used to be, is ruled a catch. Why the change?
And, FTR, I hate Pittsburgh (sorry Airman Doors) and rejoice every loss they suffer (except maybe to NE). But these relatively new rules regarding catches and possession are utter bullshit and utterly confusing, and, I submit, would not create such controversy if it were not so.
Ruled a touchdown. Do you think Santonio Holmes held on to the ball after the play ended? Did the ball hit the ground? Was his possession more than a fleeting second? Did he survive a hit from a defender? Why the change? The official ruling was “The receiver controlled the football, came down with both feet in bounds.” No mention of what happened after that.
Here’s a bunch of plays to look at. What you need to do is create a rule that anyone looking at all of them agrees as to whether it’s a catch, an incomplete pass, or one of the other possible outcomes in all these scenarios.
I don’t think your rule works 100%, and I don’t think the current rule works 100%.
For what it’s worth, I’m enjoying this discussion, but quite a few people are arguing based on old versions of the rules which are no longer in effect. For instance, the whole “Football Move” thing was removed before the 2016 season.
Ruled a touchdown. Do you think Santonio Holmes held on to the ball after the play ended? Did the ball hit the ground? Was his possession more than a fleeting second? Did he survive a hit from a defender? Why the change? The official ruling was “The receiver controlled the football, came down with both feet in bounds.” No mention of what happened after that.
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James did not maintain control of the ball through the contact with the ground. Holmes did.
How do you know? In the Holmes “catch,” the ball was obscured by his body crunching to the ground. James clearly had control of the ball when he thrust it past the plane of the goal line. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25Uouf_9DUk)
Why does the receiver have to maintain control but the running back does not?
You can argue that the rule is bullshit (it is), but you can’t argue that the ball didn’t hit the ground (after it crossed the plane): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25Uouf_9DUk
He may have had a few fingers between the ball and the ground, but the preponderance of the ball hit the ground.
The league wants the rule to function the same in the endzone and the rest of the field, with the one caveat of course that once possession is established in the endzone, the play is over. But if you apply the rule you’re describing here - momentary possession with two feet down - across the entire field, you’d have a lot more fumbles. Every single play where the receiver has it for a quarter second before being hit and having the ball pop out - which is an incomplete pass today - would be a fumble.
I’m not sure that would be an improvement. One side effect would be that teams would certainly pass less, since the risk has gone way up, so you might see more of a 1970s style defense-and-running game. I think the league has concluded they like the passing and offense oriented game better.
So you seem hell bent on saying that the rules for possession by a handoff and a forward pass should be exactly the same. That’s a valid position to take, but considering the other differences between them - only one forward pass per play, passer must be behind line of scrimmage, a dropped handoff is a live ball, whereas an incomplete pass is a dead play, etc - can you also see that it’s a valid position that the rules for possession should not be exactly the same?
And you probably won’t get much traction for your Manson thread.
I’m hell bent on that James had possession of the ball, like a running back, when he pushed it over the goal line. Once he establishes possession in the field of play, yes, he has possession like a running back, and the same rules should apply.
Shit, Manson dead. Nice. It was a month ago and my subscription to Manson Weekly Update expired, so I beg for a pass.
I think we’re all in agreement on this. Where we differ is on how you establish possession after a forward pass. If we adopt the rule of “control and two feet down, even for a fraction of a second”, there will be a huge number of completed passes and fumbles. There will also be a huge number of challenges and replays to determine if a receiver or defender had control even for the briefest of moments before the ball went ping ponging all over the place.
Currently it’s pretty easy although often difficult to determine - if the the ball came out during the process of the catch (including going to the ground) then the receiver never established possession and it’s incomplete. Lots of passes end like this; two players going up and fighting for the ball and eventually the ball bounces free. I suspect most folks would agree that’s incomplete even if one or the other player had momentary possession with their feet down.
There will continue to be challenges to see if the receiver had completed the act of catching the ball and establishing himself as a runner before the ball pops free, but much fewer than with your proposed rule. No matter what rule you propose, someone is going to be pissed.
You appear to be persistent in ignoring the one main difference here: if a running back fumbles the ball at ANY point in his attempted possession, the ball is live, and can be recovered. If a receiver fails to secure a catch, the ball is dead upon hitting the ground, and cannot be recovered. So for the running back, the only thing that matters is that he has possession at the moment the ball enters the end zone. But for the receiver, it must be established that he actually HAS possession, because otherwise all that would happen is that ANY time the receiver touched the ball, and then it dropped to the ground, the ball would be live (a fumble).
How do you decide when a receiver has “possession”? Well, since receivers often contact the ground shortly after “catching” the ball, and that contact can cause them to yield up the ball often, it’s been decided that a receiver has to maintain his control of the ball through the act of hitting the ground. Can you imagine the result if this wasn’t true? “Fumbles” galore.
Were there “fumbles galore” before the relatively recent rule was imposed? James had possession of the ball BEFORE reaching the end zone. James didn’t fail to secure the catch, he fucking caught the ball. He had possession of the ball. I don’t how you want to define possession, but I think any reasonable person will conclude he had possession prior to lunging for (or falling into) the end zone. He didn’t just “touch” the ball, and if that were the rule, yes there would be copious fumbles. But that wasn’t the case here. James didn’t just “touch” the ball, he possessed it. If someone can’t come to that conclusion based on the video evidence, then there is no argument I can make to overturn their opinion.
