Believe it or not ND doesn't usually show Colts games and when you work 7 days a week for 6 weeks straight 12 hours a day your priorities change, so I didn't get to see every game in its entirety this year.
But you mean now a fumble is going to be called a fumble? The horror. If this is such an issue why is it the Tuck Rule was only called once in a blue moon? We're they just doing a horrible job all the other times?
Even when it was called in 2001 Brady had both hands on the ball lol. It was an absurd rule and everyone obviously agreed since it was overwhelmingly voted down.
To be honest the tuck rule as they call it was really not eliminated but merely modified to how they administered the rule in the game . . . and again the tuck rule is not a separate rule in of itself, but merely the end point of the forward pass rule and specifically the delineation point between the forward pass ceasing to exist and the QB being deemed a runner again thereby a dislodged or lost ball is a fumble and not an incomplete pass . . .
The old forward pass rule was as follows:
NFL Rule 3, Section 22, Article 2, Note 2. When [an offensive] player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement of his arm starts a forward pass,
even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back toward his body. Also, if the player has tucked the ball into his body and then loses possession, it is a fumble
So here you can see the forward pass rule showing the two points of the pass, the start point (any intentional forward movement of his arm) and the end point (if a player has tucked the ball into his body) . . . the end point was past the point of the process of tucking the ball into his body . . . so bottom line the old forward pass rule including as a pass the tucking process . . .
However, the way in which the refs used the rule, they did not require the ball to be tucked into the body to call it a fumble . . . yes Manning had it tucked in his body against Balt (albeit for a brief moment), but at least on two occasions Big Ben had a fumble (last year against Cinn and the year prior against SF) in which he tried to corral the ball and lost the ball before it got to his body and they called it a fumble . . . and understandably so . . .
The new version of the rule will stop the forward past during the tucking process (like Big Ben’s fumbles), that is during the process of the QB bringing the ball back to his body . . . however this point is sequentially past the point of the pump fake . . . that is to say a QB who pump fakes the ball, never attempts to stop the pass and bring it back to his body . . . I would of preferred the end of the pump fake to be the end point of the pass . . .
The problem with the Brady pass was that he never brought the ball back to his body and objectively was doing a pump fake . . . many times when Brady, and other QBs, do a pump fake they bring the second hand in to stop the ball (and also not lose the ball on a pump fake) and bring the ball back to throw it . . . the problem with the pump fake and the new rule is that the pump fake is not an attempt to corral the ball . . .
so in reality a QB doing what Brady did would still be an incomplete pass under the new modified rule . . . it is what it is . . . again I would of like to have seen the NFL bring back the end point of the forward pass to the end of the pump fake . . . or simply when the forward motion of the arm going forward stops or the ball is pointing to the ground, at 3 PM if you will . . . this point, for me, would have been a better point to end the forward pass . . .
I am sorry to hear you can not get some colts games . . . it can be frustration if your local broadcast does not show you favorite team . . .
