BUT HERE'S THE CATCH....
By David Fleming
You know something is totally messed up in the NFL when Oakland Raiders fans start making sense.
But since Week 1 of the season, when officials overturned what looked like a certain 19-yard touchdown catch by Raiders receiver Louis Murphy -- a four-point swing in a 24-20 loss to the underwhelming Chargers -- I've listened to all those howling, confused voices from the Black Hole, and I gotta say, for once, I agree.
The key phrase here is “looked like”.
In fact, I've just finished reviewing the following: Murphy's drop, Jacoby Jones' touchdown bomb in Houston's win over the Titans and Carolina wideout Dante Rosario's 11-yard TD catch against the Falcons. Honestly, I'm convinced the touchdowns were drops and the drop was a clear touchdown.
I'm not the only one who's confused. I conducted this forensic investigation during the Colts-Dolphins game Monday night when Jon Gruden, a man we can all agree is something of a football savant, shouted this line after an apparent interception during the second half: "That's a catch -- whoops -- no it isn't."
Now there’s a convincing quote. Might as well stop the article here, case closed.
Actually, I think that may be the subheading of Article 3, "Completed or Intercepted Pass," on Page 50 of the NFL rulebook. That passage also includes the so-called explanation of the noncatch on Murphy's Call.
"A player is in possession when he is in firm grip and control of the ball inbounds. To gain possession of a loose ball that has been caught, intercepted or recovered, a player must have complete control of the ball and have both feet completely on the ground inbounds or any other part of his body, other than his hands, on the ground inbounds. If the player loses the ball while simultaneously touching both feet or any other part of his body to the ground or if there is any doubt that the acts were simultaneous, there is no possession. This rule applies to the field of play and in the end zone."
A bit technical, but it makes sense to me. And this doesn’t explain Murphy’s noncatch, because he was “going to the ground.” Read on.
This Byzantine blather is proceeded by an even more confusing "Note 1," known as the "going-to-the-ground" clause. The G2G states, "A player who goes to the ground in the process of attempting to secure possession of a loose ball [with or without contact by a defender] must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, there is no possession. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, it is a catch, interception or recovery."
Again, a bit technical, but it makes sense. And this is the relevant clause to Murphy’s noncatch.
Yes, according to this confusing, circular, contradictory 200-freakin' word explanation, I suppose you could argue that the officials made the correct call. (I don’t know where the circularities or contradictions are, but he’s pretty close on the number of words.) It seems simple, at first. In the act of possessing a pass, if a player is going to the ground and the ball touches said turf, it may not move more than slightly -- or it's an incompletion. I get it. Not the actual rule, mind you, but the genius behind the NFL Rubric, I mean, rulebook. (Good one.) You see the NFL has created a set of rules so arcane and open to interpretation that, no matter what the officials call on Sunday, the following week the league office can prove they were 100 percent correct.
Actually, the NFL and its referees frequently admit mistakes and apologize. Here are two notable examples. In fact, I’m not positive about this, but I think the NFL reviews each game and sends letters of admission to teams they believe were on the wrong end of incorrect calls. So, basically they do the exact opposite of what Fleming suggests.
I don't expect the calls to be perfect. Human frailty is part of sports, a part most of us actually enjoy and appreciate. (Really? You enjoy and appreciate bad calls? I don’t. When the Seahawks lost a playoff spot because a ref mistook Vinny Testaverde’s white helmet crossing the goal line as the brown ball, I was pretty pissed off.) This is more about the growing confusion over the same kinds of plays constantly getting different calls because the rules are too weird to understand. For example: Did you know that the NFL actually sees a clear difference between the terms "simultaneous catch" and "joint catch"? (No, I didn’t, and without any further elaboration or context, I can comfortably conclude that it’s absolutely ridiculous.)
The NFL cannot continue to develop into a passing league when something as simple and basic as the definition of catching the football takes two full pages of text, three officials, hyper-slo-mo viewing, a panel of astrophysicists and a room full of lawyers and linguists.
You know why Fleming doesn’t offer a simpler definition of a catch here? My guess is because he doesn’t have one.
In other words, you can't have a passing league in which the definition of a catch is more difficult to understand than Einstein's theory of relativity or, say, the appeal of the Kardashian sisters.
Oh wait, I take that back, my guess is because he was setting up a hilarious joke and didn’t want to ruin the flow.
Everyone other than stat geeks, Dungeons & Dragons aficionados and conspiracy theorists was confused by Murphy's Call. (WTF?) He caught it. Placed his left foot on the turf. Check. Held the ball. Check. Then placed his right foot on the turf. Check. Held the ball some more. Check. Then landed on the ground while still in possession of the ball. Check. Ball touches the ground as he's falling to the turf. Check. (Funny how he left this one out.)
By the way, should we talk about the G2G clause you mentioned early? It sounds like the relevant rule here. No. Okay.
Incomplete pass. What?
By the way, should we talk about the G2G clause you mentioned early? It sounds like the relevant rule here. No. Okay.
If the simplest definition tends to be the correct one (generally, the actual definition tends to be the correct one), it sure looked, felt and seemed like a catch to me. Ditto to Murph. "That's like winning the lottery and them taking it back from you," he said after the game. "The ultimate high, then the ultimate low."
Now there’s a relevant quote. Might as well stop the article here, case closed.
It was only after the play was allowed to be unwound by loopholes of logic (Look out Zeno of Elea!) and super hi-def slo-mo that the touchdown was reversed. And don't even get me started on slo-mo. First of all, the games aren't played in slow motion. The rules weren't written in slow motion. And yet this technology is allowed to splice every part of the game down to its molecular core -- frame by frame, pixel by pixel, atom by atom -- to the infinitesimal point where, shoot, I'm no longer 100 percent sure Murphy was even on the field that day.
Just so you know what a sentence written in slow motion looks like, I’ll write one. This sentence was written in slow motion. There you go.
If NFL Films videotapes a tree falling in the forest and then replays it in ultra-super-mega slo-mo, did it really fall down, or did it just lean, slightly, inevitably, into the Earth's rotation? (Speaking of incompletions, reread that last sentence.) Ya know, every time these rules and this technology are used to change a call that the human eye determined was a no-brainer, I wonder, how many of the 20 all-time greatest catches in NFL history would be overturned using the league's current system? Half? A third? (My honest guess, none.)
Reading the last two paragraphs, I think I can sum up Fleming’s argument against slo-mo replay: it serves it purpose.
The biggest problem I have is that the rules contradict themselves. A player going to the ground needs to maintain possession of the ball. OK, but at the same time, the rules also suggest that once a player has controlled the ball with two feet in bounds, he has caught the ball, and therefore you could argue that it's already been declared a catch before he starts going to the ground. (It's almost as if a special clause in the rules is needed to deal specifically with players “going to the ground” while making a catch.) "When they overturned it, I started asking, 'What's the rule, what's the rule, what's the rule?'" Murph says. "Everybody told me two feet down and once you land it's OK, but then I found out in meetings today the rule is even if you fall with two feet down, you still have to control it, which I thought I did."
So “Murph” seems to understand the rule perfectly, but disagrees with the ref’s judgment of control. This supports Fleming’s case how? Look, out of all the passes attempted each week, the overwhelming majority are either obvious completions or obvious incompletions, and called as such. Out of the remaining attempts, the vast majority become obvious, one way or the other, once reviewed in slo-mo replay. But, you are always going to have a small subset of attempts that are so close that they aren’t ever obvious, so the ref makes the call. That’s just how it goes. I saw Murph's noncatch, and honestly I wouldn't have overturned the call on the field of catch, but the ball does touch the ground, and it just wasn't obvious whether or not he had position. It was so close that neither side had much of a case if it didn't go their way.
Again, the rules say if a player is going to the ground, he must maintain control of the ball. But they also say it's OK if the ball touches the ground as long as you don't lose control of it, and that "slight movement" of the ball is fine once the ball is caught. But what does slight mean? A twist? A full turn? A shift? A bobble? A shake? A gink? (I made that up, but still.) Riddle me this: If the ball's touching the ground during a catch does not constitute possession, you could argue, in theory, that every time someone is tackled and the ball touches the ground, the runner is not in "possession" of the ball and it's a fumble.
The italics are mine. And I think the first sentence of his “riddle” should read, “If the ball touching the ground during a catch constitutes a non-possession…”, as it actually makes sense this way. His point is still completely inane, but it makes sense.
The result of all this technology, nomenclature and atom splitting is that although the officials in Oakland were able to determine the most infinitesimal movement of the ball as it contacted the ground, the guys in Tennessee didn't see anything wrong with the ball's leaving a large divot in the grass after Jones secured it with what looked like nothing more than his left butt cheek. On the other hand, Rosario's catch against the Falcons was allowed because the ref said the tight end, and I quote, "completed the catch, performed a second act, reaching for the goal line, penetrated the goal line, and the result of the play is a touchdown." (This makes perfect sense, and it’s a complete different scenario than the previous one.) That tells me the refs in Oakland and the league office do not consider planting both feet on the turf -- like, say, while throwing, running a route or kicking a field goal -- to be an actual football move. (No, it means they were following the going-to-the-ground clause, which they should have been because Murphy was going to the ground.)
Confused?
Should I be?
That's OK. You should be.
Oh.
The problem is so are the refs, the players, the coaches and the league office.
That's why an obvious drop in Nashville is a game- (maybe, season-) changing touchdown, but what our eyes tells us is the clean catch in Oakland is little more than an incomplete pass.
Another allusion to the the-problem-with-instant-replay-is-it-works argument.
Don't worry, though. I vow to clear up all this the next time the NFL's rules committee meets during the offseason at its usual unknown tropical island location.
One question: Anyone know how to open The Hatch?
Oh, a “Lost” reference... ha ha ha ha ha... I get it.
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