Running clock on final play was the incorrect call (merged)

Honestly, I'm surprised that the final play of the game is STILL being talked about.

The announcers last night were baffled, and the radio hosts this morning still are talking about the mysterious clock running to end the game.

They keep talking about how Butler clearly did NOT make contact with the receiver.

I would agree, but it was STILL the right call. A player is credited with going out of bounds if he goes out of bounds moving forward. You'll notice that Sammy Watkins was actually moving backwards when he went out of bounds. This has been enforced this way other times as well. I can give a pass to the tv announcers for not thinking of it right away, but I'm surprised it's still a story this morning.

Am I not understanding it correctly? I'm pretty sure that's the rule and it was enforced correctly. The refs were certainly egregious last night, but not on this play.

At first I thought it was a make up call

But it was the correct call and I'm sure the announcers would have gotten it correct if the pats had the ball and there'd be little to no mention bout it today

Or we won and somehow my lack of sleep left me feeling cynical today

That's my understanding too, that the player has to be trying to advance the ball when he goes out of bounds. Otherwise the clock continues, unless its different after the 2 minute warning.

oh F that, give them 10 extra seconds, they were not scoring that TD, end of game.

I thought this thread was about running the clock on our final drive with 3 runs, that was the correct call too, their defense is good, the offense was off last night, the O-line played its worst game in the year, run the clock and trust the defense, their offense was as inept as ours.

Yeah, even giving them 2 extra seconds, they ain't winning that game, or even tying it. At that point, I doubt Taylor is throwing the ball that far. And even if Emmanuel came in to throw, it would still be a low odds chance of tying it. They'd probably put Gronk in the end zone on defense.

Willie McGinest on NFLN right after the game said it was because he was going backwards. Of COURSE the ex-Patriot knew the rule.

I remember a commentator talking specifically about running out of bounds either yesterday or on Sunday. Something to the effect of "So and so is a really smart player because he runs out of bounds going towards the opponents end zone to stop the clock. So many other players run backwards while going to the side line so the clock keeps running." I thought it was a stupid comment because players are naturally inclined to run forward even when going out of bounds, unless he sees a defender bearing down on him. It doesn't make them smart for trying to gain yardage. I thought it was Gruden who said it since he sounded like he was half in the bag with all of his senseless comments, but he didn't chime in at the end when Tirico was talking about it.

FootballZebras begs to differ:

Steratore crew defeated in Monday night game | Football Zebras

QuantumMechanic said:

FootballZebras begs to differ:

Steratore crew defeated in Monday night game | Football Zebras

Click to expand...

Interesting, so he's claiming that "advancing the ball" doesn't necessarily mean moving it forward? That could certainly change my interpretation of the play...but in every other context I can think of, like after a fumble, "advancing" DOES mean moving forward.

QuantumMechanic said:

FootballZebras begs to differ:

Steratore crew defeated in Monday night game | Football Zebras

Click to expand...

Funny comments at the bottom of that article. Some "fans" are truly clueless. Some idiot asking about face guarding, still, years after it is no longer a rule. And someone replying saying that the NFL helps NE out. The refs took points off the board for NE last night because Rex Ryan interfered with a play. I cannot imagine the incredible outrage if it was BB who did that. Instead, people talk about BUF not getting two seconds to throw a pass because their WR looked like an idiot trying to get out of bounds.

patchick said:

Interesting, so he's claiming that "advancing the ball" doesn't necessarily mean moving it forward? That could certainly change my interpretation of the play...but in every other context I can think of, like after a fumble, "advancing" DOES mean moving forward.

Click to expand...

With a RB advancing doesn't seem to mean forward. You see them go right, there's no hole then go back to get away. At that point if they're tackled the won't get a forward progress call because they went backwards by choice.

I don't think the intent of this rule was to call a play dead in that situation.

I was looking for the rulebook and saw there was already a PFT article written about this, and these were my thoughts exactly.

When a receiver gives himself up and goes down intentionally, the play becomes dead. For example, if a receiver runs over the middle of the field untouched, falls down with clear intent to end the play, and then flips the ball to the official, it is not a fumble because the receiver does not need to be touched if he chooses to end the play. This is open to interpretation to some degree, but there are rarely any issues with this.

On the final play, Watkins intentionally goes to the ground and therefore the play should be blown dead the moment he hits the ground. The fact that he then rolls out of bounds would not make any difference, since he was already down in bounds, and the clock should continue running.

That is my opinion. One may argue that he wasn't "intentionally" giving himself up on the play until he hit the sidelines, and that is an odd gray area. I could see arguing that way. Bottom line is I think it could have gone either way, and it was up to the ref to make the call. I don't think it was a "bad" call. Florio thinks it was a bad call because the ref should have gone further and interpreted Watkins's intent.

Link below:

Steratore says Watkins “gave himself up” on final play

Uncle Rico said:

Willie McGinest on NFLN right after the game said it was because he was going backwards. Of COURSE the ex-Patriot knew the rule.

Click to expand...

Why am I not surprised that Quantum Mechanic is the one to disagree with you..

It was the wrong call. The refs blew it. That's not surprising given how bad they were for the entire game.

What it comes down to is whether or not the runner was surrendering himself. Steratore says he was, but that was a ridiculous cover up for a gross error. There's no way that Watkins was surrendering himself while twisting backwards, losing his balance, with two seconds left in the game, losing by seven, desperate to reach the sidelines. It's not like he took a knee or slid like a QB.

Both the Fox Sports Rules expert (Pereira) and the ESPN rules expert (Daoupolous) agree it was the wrong call. As mentioned above, Football Zebras also agreed it was the wrong call.

It's not a big deal and I certainly am not gonna lose any sleep over it, but the refs made an error on that play, which was one of many errors on the night.

Deus Irae said:

It was the wrong call. The refs blew it. That's not surprising given how bad they were for the entire game.

Click to expand...

Agreed. The "going backwards" rule is in respect to the field, say a guy is blocked up and pushed backwards out of bounds. Nothing to do with sliding sideways in regards to the field, untouched.

Absolutely should have been 2 seconds left on the clock. But that was one of the worst officiated games I've ever seen, for both sides.

There's room for reasonable disagreement on this. You can say he was down because he gave himself up, based on the letter of the law. Or you can say he wasn't down because he was attempting to continue the play, not end it, which is against the intent and spirit of the law.

What you can't say, I think, is that the 2 extra seconds would have given Buffalo any realistic shot to win the game. First off, the odds of completing a hail mary from beyond the 50 yard line are <1%. Then you'd have to cut those odds for a QB with an injured throwing shoulder. Then factor in the extra point on a cold, windy night with 2 missed field goals. Then cut the odds in half again for the fact that they'd be heading into overtime, not winning outright. Being generous, they'd have a 1 in 500 chance.

QuantumMechanic said:

FootballZebras begs to differ:

Steratore crew defeated in Monday night game | Football Zebras

Click to expand...

So, you offer up a page of a guy who has never been an official in his life as justification that they got the call wrong??

Doesn't matter if you're going forwards, sideways or backwards...if you get out of bounds the clock stops. It was a blown call but, at the end of the day, it wouldn't have changed anything. So why are we talking about it? Just more fuel to add to the anti-patriots fire.