Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it'

[PatsFans.com Article]

Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it'
By: Ian Logue

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick wasn't exactly in great spirits after Sunday's 25-17 loss to the Steelers, and addressed some of the questions that came up after the game....

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[PatsFanSince74]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

I'd put this one on whomever in the press box is supposed to tell BB that he should challenge a call. Maybe it was just my Homer's eyes, but I didn't think there was much doubt that Gronkowski had scored when I watched the play in real time, a view that was validated by the replay as well as by the comments of Nance and Simms.

I think somebody on BB's staff choked rather than risk wasting a time out. Yes, they were in the "Hurry Up" so it wouldn't have been such a big deal if they scored on the next play, but how could that success be assumed? Clearly it shouldn't have been.

 

[jbb9s]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

I'd put this one on whomever in the press box is supposed to tell BB that he should challenge a call. Maybe it was just my Homer's eyes, but I didn't think there was much doubt that Gronkowski had scored when I watched the play in real time, a view that was validated by the replay as well as by the comments of Nance and Simms.

I think somebody on BB's staff choked rather than risk wasting a time out. Yes, they were in the "Hurry Up" so it wouldn't have been such a big deal if they scored on the next play, but how could that success be assumed? Clearly it shouldn't have been.

my assumption is ernie adams is watching and advising. what exactly is his game day responsibility? (this is not turning into a spygate thread please).

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

my assumption is ernie adams is watching and advising. what exactly is his game day responsibility? (this is not turning into a spygate thread please).

They didn't challenge because CBS didn't t show any replays due to to brady's hurry up mode. Also the steelers weren't about to show it on their jumbo tron...

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

They didn't challenge because CBS didn't t show any replays due to to brady's hurry up mode. Also the steelers weren't about to show it on their jumbo tron...

But that's my point. The Patriots organization is actually paying somebody good money to make this call. Without the replay, I didn't think there was any doubt it was a TD. It's nice that the replay and Nance/Simms agreed, but when the decision had to be made, somebody choked.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

But that's my point. The Patriots organization is actually paying somebody good money to make this call. Without the replay, I didn't think there was any doubt it was a TD. It's nice that the replay and Nance/Simms agreed, but when the decision had to be made, somebody choked.

Maybe Ernie Adams was out sick yesterday. Who knows lol..

 

[WhoaDirty]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

But that's my point. The Patriots organization is actually paying somebody good money to make this call. Without the replay, I didn't think there was any doubt it was a TD. It's nice that the replay and Nance/Simms agreed, but when the decision had to be made, somebody choked.

Without the replay that was a tough call to make as I only saw it as a maybe, and if you lose that challenge you are in a worse spot than what they were.

 

[Patjew]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

I could see it.

 

[Kid~Brady]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

This should've been an automatic review, he was clearly pass the line.

This would have essentially saved us 1:30 which would have given us a decent attempt to score again.

 

[upstater1]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

This should've been an automatic review, he was clearly pass the line.

This would have essentially saved us 1:30 which would have given us a decent attempt to score again.

Why wasn't it automatically reviewed?

 

[bresna]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

Why wasn't it automatically reviewed?

It's not automatically reviewed unless it's called a TD on the field.

 

[Kjmass1]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

Without the replay that was a tough call to make as I only saw it as a maybe, and if you lose that challenge you are in a worse spot than what they were.

At least the clock stops...

 

[RodThePat]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

The fault lies with the ref here. When a play is that close, they should be instructed to signal the Touchdown, so they'd be able to review it and spot the ball at the one in case Gronk didn't get it in. You can't tell me the ref was absolutely, positively certain Gronkowski didn't get in the endzone on that play, so he should have acted with more caution.

 

[voluntarysaftey]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

The fault lies with the ref here. When a play is that close, they should be instructed to signal the Touchdown, so they'd be able to review it and spot the ball at the one in case Gronk didn't get it in. You can't tell me the ref was absolutely, positively certain Gronkowski didn't get in the endzone on that play, so he should have acted with more caution.

I agree. To call a touchdown with the ability to reverse it is a safer call by the ref than to not call the touchdown without the ability to reverse it. The NFL should really instruct the refs that if its very close to call it and go to the review. Or the NFL should just put the policy in place to allow the ref to review calls that are within 3 yards of the goal line if they want to.

 

[upstater1]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

At least the clock stops...

It's effectively a timeout. But then you've lost the ability to stop the Steelers from running off 45 seconds on one of their plays on their next possession.

You're better off not calling TOs on offense when you're behind because you have the hurry-up. The problem is that the Patriots called like 3 or 4 plays after Gronk's catch.

 

[DarrylS]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

Listening to Zolak, and apparently the folks in the box rely on the feeds from CBS.. CBS did not show it until about 3 plays later.

I suspected this, but Zo confirmed it.. from my view at home it was not conclusive, if anything it looked short.

OTOH the O should have punched it in on the next play..

 

[upstater1]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

The fault lies with the ref here. When a play is that close, they should be instructed to signal the Touchdown, so they'd be able to review it and spot the ball at the one in case Gronk didn't get it in. You can't tell me the ref was absolutely, positively certain Gronkowski didn't get in the endzone on that play, so he should have acted with more caution.

It was doubly bad when the ref marked Faulk a whole yard back from forward progress on the next play. They had trouble spotting the ball all day yesterday.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

The fault lies with the ref here. When a play is that close, they should be instructed to signal the Touchdown, so they'd be able to review it and spot the ball at the one in case Gronk didn't get it in. You can't tell me the ref was absolutely, positively certain Gronkowski didn't get in the endzone on that play, so he should have acted with more caution.

Totally disagree. The problem is that the call on the field creates a very strong presumption that it's the correct call (it takes "indisputable evidence" to overturn the call on the field). So if the refs start calling close plays as TDs, there are going to be a bunch of plays that really weren't TDs that will be TDs because the ref bogusly called a close play a TD and there wasn't enough evidence to overturn it.

I think an earlier poster had it better. Any play where the ball is marked down inside the one yard line should be subject to automatic review, not just scoring plays.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

OTOH the O should have punched it in on the next play..

Bingo! That was the real problem, not the failure to challenge.

 

[RodThePat]

Re: Belichick On Why They Didn't Challenge Gronkowski's Touchdown: 'I Couldn't See it

Totally disagree. The problem is that the call on the field creates a very strong presumption that it's the correct call (it takes "indisputable evidence" to overturn the call on the field). So if the refs start calling close plays as TDs, there are going to be a bunch of plays that really weren't TDs that will be TDs because the ref bogusly called a close play a TD and there wasn't enough evidence to overturn it.

I think an earlier poster had it better. Any play where the ball is marked down inside the one yard line should be subject to automatic review, not just scoring plays.

When the only doubt about a play is whether a ball carrier, standing up, crossed the plane with possession, it should be easy to determine, with certainty, if it was a touchdown or not. The correct thing to do was to call that a TD.