Saw the article, never saw the play til now. FOXsports.com has Mike Pereira on it's staff, a former ten-year head of officials (five as Director, five as Vice President of Officiating) in the NFL, to talk about various questionable calls.
The article is here, and addresses a call in the New York Giants' 31-27 win over Arizona.
3:10 to go in the fourth, Giants down 27-24.
Manning completes a pass to his wide receiver, is hit, but appears to stay standing until he goes to the ground and THEN releases the ball.
As you well know, the NFL rule is that you have to be downed by contact to be declared down in most cases -- I do believe there is the occasional "surrender" situation, but the point Pereira makes is that it's not evident here.
#1, the catch is clear, even by the Calvin Johnson Rule. He has made several "football moves", but...
#2, he goes to the ground on his own.
Pereira discusses this, and it appears that, by the rule he quotes on when the ball becomes dead, when the receiver went down and ceased advancement, he had "surrendered" the end of the play and flicked the ball out upon doing so.
Here's the rule, from the text of the article:
Rule 7, Section 2, Article 1 (e) states that "an official shall declare the ball dead and the down ended when a runner is out of bounds or declares himself down by falling to the ground, or kneeling and making no effort to advance."
Yes, it's a clear judgement, but the receiver does go down and lays on top of the ball. The real question is when the whistle blows here, and whether he stumbled or went down on his own.
This does appear to be, if not evidence of a rigged game, something to start with.
No comments:
Post a Comment