A Question RE: The 1st Challenge

Wanted to start a discussion regarding the 1st challenge of the game, in which the ball was initially spotted at the 40 yard line.

Upon review, the ball clearly only reached the 39 yard line.

Here's the important discussion to be had: are officials reviewing ...

1.) the spot of the ball specifically?

OR

2.) whether or not a 1st down was achieved relative to the progress of the ball?

If it's '1', then the call was indisputably wrong, the ruling should have been overturned, the ball re-spotted and then measured from the new spot.

If it's '2', then I can understand the "play stands" judgment. The line to gain was the 39, meaning (while it would've been close), there likely was not ample evidence to indicate that a 1st down had not been achieved, hence the "stands" ruling.

It seems the awfulness of that decision is contingent on that detail. Anyone have insight on this?

I don’t think they are restricted to one or another. Would be a shame if the scope of a review was so limited, a correct call couldn’t be made due to technicalities.

in the past I have seen where after review they respot the ball and measure. If it's still a first down, then they lose the challenge. Why they didn't respot the ball near the 39 is beyond me.

They absolutely should have moved the ball back. If it’s still a first down after moving it back, then the Pats still lose the challenge. It would have had to be short of a first down (or be PI) in order to win the challenge.

dreighver said:

Wanted to start a discussion regarding the 1st challenge of the game, in which the ball was initially spotted at the 40 yard line.

Upon review, the ball clearly only reached the 39 yard line.

Here's the important discussion to be had: are officials reviewing ...

1.) the spot of the ball specifically?

OR

2.) whether or not a 1st down was achieved relative to the progress of the ball?

If it's '1', then the call was indisputably wrong, the ruling should have been overturned, the ball re-spotted and then measured from the new spot.

If it's '2', then I can understand the "play stands" judgment. The line to gain was the 39, meaning (while it would've been close), there likely was not ample evidence to indicate that a 1st down had not been achieved, hence the "stands" ruling.

It seems the awfulness of that decision is contingent on that detail. Anyone have insight on this?

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2

The challenge is whether a first down was reached. Otherwise teams would “win” challenges if the spot is changed, and the spot is rarely perfect.

Did I miss it or did the network make no attempt to show another angle on that challenge? It looked just short to me from the only angle I saw.

Agreed, I think Romo mentioned they should have at least moved the ball to where the runner was down according to replay and then measured. But they didn’t change the spot at all even though it was clearly a yard off.

While I’m here, IMO the challenge rules should be changed. The current rules are that you get two challenges and if you win them both you get a third. We won one out of two challenges. The first was the subject of this thread and you can argue we should have won. The second was the fumble and we only sort of won that because it should have resulted in a TD but that can’t be reviewed.

I don’t see why you the rules are set up that you don’t retain the ability to challenge if you win. We were out of challenges because we used the last one to correct the fumble, so we couldn’t use one a few plays later for Harry’s TD. As someone else pointed out here, I don’t ever remember being out of challenges before. Why not have the rule be that you retain the challenge if you win it? We got penalized because we had to correct terrible mistakes by the refs. It shouldn’t be part of game strategy for a coach to have to think “well this was a bad mistake by the ref but I should save the challenge in case he makes an even worse mistake later on”.

That’s just one of many reasons I’m mad today.

dreighver said:

Wanted to start a discussion regarding the 1st challenge of the game, in which the ball was initially spotted at the 40 yard line.

Upon review, the ball clearly only reached the 39 yard line.

Here's the important discussion to be had: are officials reviewing ...

1.) the spot of the ball specifically?

OR

2.) whether or not a 1st down was achieved relative to the progress of the ball?

If it's '1', then the call was indisputably wrong, the ruling should have been overturned, the ball re-spotted and then measured from the new spot.

If it's '2', then I can understand the "play stands" judgment. The line to gain was the 39, meaning (while it would've been close), there likely was not ample evidence to indicate that a 1st down had not been achieved, hence the "stands" ruling.

It seems the awfulness of that decision is contingent on that detail. Anyone have insight on this?

Click to expand...

It’s only the line to gain.
But if you watched the replay his back barely made it to the line to gain and the ball was in front of him. It was indisputable but close. The rule doesn’t say as long as they are close.

It’s definitely not just the spot. In fact, I’m pretty sure you aren’t even allowed to challenge the spot unless you are claiming the spot wrongly gave or prevented a first down or safety, or wrongly prevented a TD.

The only way to win a spotting challenge is for the challenge to result in a change in one of those. Just moving the ball isn’t enough. It has to change what was ruled on the field re: down or score.

QuantumMechanic said:

It’s definitely not just the spot. In fact, I’m pretty sure you aren’t even allowed to challenge the spot unless you are claiming the spot wrongly gave or prevented a first down or safety, or wrongly prevented a TD.

The only way to win a spotting challenge is for the challenge to result in a change in one of those. Just moving the ball isn’t enough. It has to change what was ruled on the field re: down or score.

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Why would you disagree with my post saying the sane thing?

Ring 6 said:

Why would you disagree with my post saying the sane thing?

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Because I disagree that the ball was “indisputably” short of a first down.

One thing to keep in mind is that the refs always (outside the 10s or 20s) fudge spots after a first down has been determined to have been made so that next series starts exactly on a yard line. (It’s obvious once you start looking for it.)

So I suspect what *may* have happened is this (I haven’t gone and checked the tape):
1) refs mark the player down a little past the 39.
2) given that dead ball spot they immediately know it was a first down because the series started exactly on the 29.
3) they signal the first down and in the process of moving the chains, etc. put the ball exactly on the 40 so the next series starts on an exact yard line.
4) BB challenges
5) They see the ball is short of the 40 but don’t see definitively that it is before the 39. So it remains a first down and NE loses.
6) Since it is still a first down they just leave it at the 40.

QuantumMechanic said:

One thing to keep in mind is that the refs always (outside the 10s or 20s) fudge spots after a first down has been determined to have been made so that next series starts exactly on a yard line. (It’s obvious once you start looking for it.)

So I suspect what *may* have happened is this (I haven’t gone and checked the tape):
1) refs mark the player down a little past the 39.
2) given that dead ball spot the they immediately know it was a first down because the series started exactly on the 29.
3) the signal the first down and in the process of moving the chains, etc. put the ball exactly on the 40 so the next series starts on an exact yard line.
4) BB challenges
5) They see the ball is short of the 40 but don’t see definitively that it is before the 39. So it remains a first down and NE loses.
6) Since it is still a first down they just leave it at the 40.

Click to expand...

And this is getting more off topic, but this chart is interesting:



Note the peaks on the 5s and 10s. That's not because there's a weird reason that 4th downs are more likely to be snapped there (except maybe for on your own 20 or 25 yard line after a touchback), it's because there's a subconscious bias for ref to spot the ball directly on those yard lines if it ended close to them on the third down play.

Ring 6 said:

It’s only the line to gain.
But if you watched the replay his back barely made it to the line to gain and the ball was in front of him. It was indisputable but close. The rule doesn’t say as long as they are close.

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I thought it was a bad challenge but I guess it was appropriate due to the circumstances of the game. There was certainly some desperation involved.

That’s how bad this crew was. In a normal game we’d be talking about this as one of the biggest errors the officials made in the game. Instead this isn’t even in the top 5 of blown/missed calls.

As for the play, it should’ve been moved back a yard and remeasured. Since the spot was incorrect the pats should’ve kept their TO.

supafly said:

I thought it was a bad challenge but I guess it was appropriate due to the circumstances of the game. There was certainly some desperation involved.

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You can't just hold on to your challenges hoping there would be something more valuable to throw the flag at later in the game. This is just from a game theory perspective wrong. You don't know if something will happen or if the game will even be in reach at that point (for or against).

Especially not with something that could have stopped a drive.

Here they had a rare chance to challenge two things at once. The PI came for free.

supafly said:

I thought it was a bad challenge but I guess it was appropriate due to the circumstances of the game. There was certainly some desperation involved.

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Desperation is for losers, and the Patriots lost because of
it. That doesn't happen most years. The team needs to get their head straight.

I thought it was a bad idea to challenge here.

Sciz said:

They absolutely should have moved the ball back. If it’s still a first down after moving it back, then the Pats still lose the challenge. It would have had to be short of a first down (or be PI) in order to win the challenge.

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Are you sure about that? If they're challenging the spot of the ball, and indeed the spot of the ball was wrong, they should still have won the challenge even if the Chiefs still got the first down

A Defiant Goose said:

Are you sure about that? If they're challenging the spot of the ball, and indeed the spot of the ball was wrong, they should still have won the challenge even if the Chiefs still got the first down

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He is correct. You don't win a challenge if the principal ruling doesn't change. They didn't challenge "the spot" they challenged the spot with respect to the first down. You can't challenge just spots.

It’s crazy to me that we are almost into 2020 and things are still done by “eyeing it“ in a game that’s often decided by inches.
There is too much technology available to improve the kind of mistakes that tarnished the game yesterday.