Bear with me, but I don’t get the finer points of (American) football. Can you explain the Eagles’ TD - the 2nd to be challenged during the Big Game? You’ll recall the player was in the end zone. He had the ball for maybe a second or a few seconds when, instinctively, he needed to “re-catch” the ball as it slipped or popped out of his grip. (Maybe someone can provide a more descript picture of this situation.)
The TV announcers were saying “it depends if he were a runner”… or a what? What are the alternate choice(s), and why does this matter? Do some TDs have to be “cleaner” than others depending on the specific player carrying the ball across the goal line?
When you go to catch the ball, until you have completed the process of the catch, you are still just a receiver. So say you jump up for the ball, catch it in the air, hit the ground, and the ball pops out. That’s an incomplete pass.
But lets say you catch the ball, turn, and start running up the field. You are now a runner. If you get hit and the ball pops out, that’s not a incomplete pass, that’s a fumble.
Everyone seems to get that, but the tricky part happens at the end zone. If you are in the process of completing the catch and you cross into the end zone, it’s not a touchdown until you complete the catch. The ball pops out, it’s an incomplete pass, no touchdown. If you are a runner, as soon as the ball breaks the plane of the end zone, it’s a touchdown, no matter what happens to the ball after.
So the question with the play was, is he a runner? In the case, the player caught the ball, took a few steps, and then was tripped up. The refs decided he was a runner.
mr ertz caught the football, took 2 steps and leapt/tripped over the pats player on the ground. those 2 steps turned him into a runner with the football. a runner just has to break the plane with the ball. mr ertz did that. he did bobble a bit in the endzone, but that was after he broke the plane.
the other reviewed touchdown was a more subjective decision. when in slow motion you see that the receiver turned his foot so that he stayed in bounds, then the ball handling becomes the issue. did he have control? on that one i could see the call going either way.
OK, I follow and appreciate your explanations above. But, now, what about that pesky “surviving the ground” business? How does that reconcile with “breaking the plane of the end zone”? …Or, is the former only relevant if catching the football in the end zone (vs. running the ball into the end zone)?
“Surviving the ground” only applies if you are still a receiver, not a runner. Once he became a runner and broke the plane of the end zone, the play is over.
Surviving the ground only matters if you’re falling as you catch the ball. If a subjective look states that the player would have stayed on his feet with no outside forces, he has possession the moment he has control of the ball. If you’re already falling, jumping, or diving, you have to maintain control through the entire fall.
Separately, if a player has control of the ball in the appropriate endzone, it’s a touchdown. Whether the ball moved into the endzone via a catch or being run in (breaking the plane) is irrelevant.
Can we just clone Tony Romo and use him for all of the NFL color commentary? Hearing other commentators use the things he’s explained this season as if everyone knew it, and repeat dumb shit like “I don’t even know what a catch is anymore” over and over ad nauseum irritates the shit out of me.
The announcers were basically talking out of their rears. There was absolutely nothing that would have caused that TD to be reversed. He had pretty solid control from the start, took 3-4 steps, then dove into the end zone. Once the ball crossed the plane it was a TD and the play is over. That shouldn’t have been questionable at all. The fact that the announcers expected it to be reversed suggests to me that they need to choose a different beverage to drink while calling a game.
Collinsworth, in particular, didn’t have a great game, and it was he who was vehemently saying that this wasn’t a catch. As others have noted already, it was pretty clear that Ertz had transitioned from being a receiver to being a runner, and, once he had done so, the moment that the ball crossed the plane of the goal line, it was a touchdown, and the play was over.
The NFL’s rules on establishing possession as a receiver have been tweaked repeatedly over the past few years, due to several controversial plays / rulings, and I think that the tweaks have just made the rule even less comprehensible. When a play looks like an obvious catch to the fans, but the rules state otherwise, then it’s probably the rules that are mistaken. Last week, even Roger Goodell suggested that they may need to rip up the rule and start over.
They even threw in the bogus distinction of whether Ertz would have fallen without contact with McCourty, which again is irrelevant because Ertz was clearly running with control of the ball before he stretched out his arms to break the plane of the end zone.
I include Al Michaels in my criticism because he went along with Collingsworth. I’m not calling them “idiots” or “ignorant” because I’ve seen them do a fine job covering games. Hence my speculation about their beverages.
One of the problems many people (players, spectators, commentators) have with the “catch” thing is that they don’t break it down into a flow-chart of analysis. So they don’t know how to differentiate situations when they are presented. The Ertz catch was an example. Superficially, it resembles the non-catch by Jesse James of the Pittsburgh steelers in the playoff game. It also has some resemblance to the infamous Dez Bryant non-catch. So, if you equate the Ertz play with the James play, it’s easy to see why you would think the “catch” would be over-turned.
But, of course, as Collinsworth began to note later in the period of review (probably because someone wiser was coaching him via earbug), the plays aren’t analogous, because Ertz was a runner and James was still a receiver. So the analysis should be:
a) did the receiver ever have control? If no, not a catch. If yes, then
b) did the receiver become a runner? If yes, then end catch analysis; jump to runner rules. If no, then
c) was the receiver going to the ground as a part of the catch? If no, then catch. If yes, then
d) did the receiver “survive the ground”? If yes, then catch. If no, then no catch.
There are, of course, other possibilities that have to be considered; I’m just involving the ones relevant here. The issue of surviving the ground requires three distinct other things to be true before you get to that issue, and that’s what eluded Collinsworth (and Michaels) at the start of their commentary.
It wasn’t the case in this one, but it actually is relevant. Running and stretching your arms with the ball can be done while still falling to the ground. If you cannot prevent yourself from hitting the ground after the catch, no matter how long you stumble along or have control of the ball, you still need to survive the ground.
I wouldn’t be so quick to judge the commentary team on if the play was ruled correctly. Not only was the play reviewed in the first place, but the refs took a really long-ass time to figure it out themselves. If it was at patently obvious as ya’ll are making it seem, the ref would have said his decision in no time flat as opposed to 2 min or so.
Every play that’s ruled a touchdown by the officials on the field is automatically reviewed via instant replay; it’s been that way in the NFL for several years. So, that fact alone doesn’t add anything to the thought that it was a tough call.
The problem wasn’t that the TV guys thought there was an issue there, but that they were just so adamant that it wasn’t a catch.
In my view, the guy caught the ball on the 5 yard line and ran 5 yards with it to the end zone. That’s something a runner would do. They did say, “if they consider him a runner, than the touchdown will stand.” But they way they said it made you think they thought that highly unlikely.
