As Usual, Patriots Likely Sparked Another Rule Change This Offseason

[PatsFans.com Article]

As Usual, Patriots Likely Sparked Another Rule Change This Offseason

Bob George

Don’t you just love these Patriots, the team that makes you have to change the rule book now and then.

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[Tony2046]

Making a Jesse James catch legal with new verbiage only sets up the league for another Patriot's egg in your face moment.

We already know that with a new rule there will come a game in which a receiver will catch the ball, fumble (not survive the ground) and the Patriots will recover it. Of course the opposing team's fan base will ***** about it wasn't a catch or a fumble and that the league is favoring the Pats..

 

[Gumby]

I find it very doubtful that the rule will find many PROFESSIONAL football people who want to change it.

If you make catches that don't survive contact into VALID catches, you will likely multiply the number of fumbles in a gamE (that otherwise would be simple incomplete). I doubt competition committee wants to insert such a random variable.

Anyone proposing that such a rule change would take place ought to have enough balls to stick their chest out and tell us what this magnificent new rule should be -details please? . . . . . Bueller, Bueller, . . .thought so. Anyone *****ing about the rule can take all the whining back to squealtown or faderland with them, I'm not interested.

 

[DarrylS]

Read somewhere(think twitter) that the Pats have a team rule not to do what Jesse James did, and if done then benching is the consequence..

I believe it was posted by a current Patriots Player.. forget who, but interesting.

 

[turkeyneck]

Surely a touchdown must consist of possessing the ball in the endzone. A touchdown doesn't occur until possession is established. On a pass play, possession is not established until the receiver "survives the ground." I don't see where: 1., the rule needs to be changed, or 2., where there is any logical room to make a change.

 

[Jackson 2]

Read somewhere(think twitter) that the Pats have a team rule not to do what Jesse James did, and if done then benching is the consequence..

I believe it was posted by a current Patriots Player.. forget who, but interesting.

I saw it via a question posed to Matthew Slater. I don't recall his exact response, but he indicated that the team has been instructed about those potential situations.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Not a very helpful article.

No need to rehash the basics of this play, which have been repeated often here and elsewhere in the last 36 hours. Under the rule, if this play occurred at the 30 yard line there would have been no argument that it was an incomplete pass, had it occurred in the last two minutes or had the opposing team had the quickness to challenge the call of a completed pass. Ditto if James had been a runner.

I wrote that the article is "not...very helpful," because other than bloviating on the reactions of other teams, George doesn't make any suggestion regarding what rule change might actually occur. Instead he diverges into this being another possible conspiracy to limit the Patriots in some way...as though Pats receivers are any less likely to lose control of the ball going to the ground after a catch than any other team's and thus not benefit from a rule change like everybody else.

The only reasonable change one could make to the rule, based on this play, would be that a receiver doesn't have to control the ball to the ground after he has crossed the plane of the goal. But that opens up the possibility that a receiver could be juggling the ball as he crosses the plane and, then, after falling forward so his momentum propels the ball out of the back of the end-zone, make the argument that he was in possession of the ball when he crossed the plane and has, therefore, scored a touchdown. If a runner did that, it would be a TD.

In other words, I don't see how they can change this rule unless they just say that a receiver doesn't have to control the ball to the ground, thereby taking us back to a situation where there are multiple "fumbles" and "recoveries" of balls that are now, rightly in my opinion, called "incomplete passes." I just don't think the league wants to go back there and there is really no middle ground that I can see.

The Tuck Rule was a rule that needed to be changed (just glad it wasn't changed before 2001/02). We've all watched that play ten thousand times and there is no doubt that Brady was trying to pull the ball back when he was hit, etc. (no need to repeat that argument).

 

[VegasGuy]

Surely a touchdown must consist of possessing the ball in the endzone. A touchdown doesn't occur until possession is established. On a pass play, possession is not established until the receiver "survives the ground." I don't see where: 1., the rule needs to be changed, or 2., where there is any logical room to make a change.

I agree. I don't see any reason to change it and I don't think they will. We actually have a definition of what constitutes a catch these days.

 

[Ring 6]

Awful article

But this is a real head shaker.

In a perfect world, Pittsburgh tight end Jesse James scores a touchdown with 28 seconds left, Pittsburgh has a 31-27 lead, and Tom Brady might not have enough time to respond with a touchdown the other way. But the NFL is far from perfect

Seems bob was rooting for the Steelers.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

If the ground can’t cause a fumble, as we all learned at age 6, there’s a natural tendency to think that it can’t prevent a TD.

But to fumble you need to have control to begin with.

So, more TDs and more fumbles? Make the rule, do what you want. The Pats survive attempts to beat them in the off season.

One big reason is that they forget the monstrous indignity or a huge let down play and focus on the play ahead.

Maybe it’s my homer goggles but does anybody here remember B.B. impugning officials or rules or a “lucky play” from the podium? I remember him saying that games turn on a few big plays, and “unfortunately they made a few more of them than we did.”

Maybe I just don’t remember right.

 

[upstater1]

Making a Jesse James catch legal with new verbiage only sets up the league for another Patriot's egg in your face moment.

We already know that with a new rule there will come a game in which a receiver will catch the ball, fumble (not survive the ground) and the Patriots will recover it. Of course the opposing team's fan base will ***** about it wasn't a catch or a fumble and that the league is favoring the Pats..

My biggest concern with this is that the ruling would then become subjective. Like with Gronk and OPI. Not likely to be in the Patriots' favor, in other words.

 

[SacPete1]

The rule is easy to understand; just ask Eli. Plus there was a reason they changed this several years ago; the play happens so quick that the line of judgement between a catch and possession to a catch, possession and fumble was so thin that it required far too much judgement which inherently leads to inconsistency.

Eli Manning is the one guy who digs the catch rule

 

[everlong]

I don't think changing the rule is as complicated as the league makes it.

1. If you take three steps inbounds before going out of bounds the ground cannot cause a fumble.

2. If you get two feet down and make a visible drive to the end zone, maintain control and cross the goal line it's a TD even if you lose the ball after contacting the ground.

All other scenarios revert to the old rule. A quick tapping off the feet on the sideline and you only get two feet in and lose the ball hitting the ground it's incomplete.

Scenario one also means if you get three feet down in bounds and then get popped it's a fumble and live ball. I cannot stand when a receiver takes three steps and has turned up field and he gets hit and they call it an incomplete pass.

Scenario two ASJ is still a fumble.

 

[IllegalContact]

huh?

are they going to make a rule that incomplete passes are now complete? ya......just hit the goddamned target in the back and we will call it good

because anywhere on the field, that's an incomplete pass

if his entire body is already in the endzone, it's incomplete

if he's on the 50 yard line, it's incomplete

if he's on the sideline and gets 2 feet in, it's incomplete

he came down without contact, his elbow hit the turf and the ball came loose BEFORE it hit the ground.......and the ball hit the ground before he 'recovered it'

it's just an incomplete pass and that's it......the situation does not address that

really quite simple

 

[Bill Lee]

For those who want to work through what the catch is, Reddit gives us .

For those who want to go with the 'N guys in a bar say it's a catch', you're fooling yourselves.

 

[Koma]

Seems like a good place to put this:



As has been noted by other learned posters, Tomlin was on the Competition Committee when the current catch guidelines were put in place. How are they going to introduce this topic? - "Okay, all of us felt like the rules for a catch were fine a few years ago. But, since Mike feels like his team got screwed because of them, we've got to change them. Again."

 

[Ring 6]

I don't think changing the rule is as complicated as the league makes it.

1. If you take three steps inbounds before going out of bounds the ground cannot cause a fumble.

This is already the case because you weren’t very going to the ground while making the catch.

2. If you get two feet down and make a visible drive to the end zone, maintain control and cross the goal line it's a TD even if you lose the ball after contacting the ground.

This woildnt gave helped James because he went to the ground in the process of making the catch. In fact what you describe would be a TD because you made the catch on your feet, completed it then dove. Therefore the dive is not part of the catch.

All other scenarios revert to the old rule. A quick tapping off the feet on the sideline and you only get two feet in and lose the ball hitting the ground it's incomplete.

Scenario one also means if you get three feet down in bounds and then get popped it's a fumble and live ball. I cannot stand when a receiver takes three steps and has turned up field and he gets hit and they call it an incomplete pass.

Scenario two ASJ is still a fumble.

I don’t think your changes are actually changes.

 

[everlong]

This is already the case because you weren’t very going to the ground while making the catch.


This woildnt gave helped James because he went to the ground in the process of making the catch. In fact what you describe would be a TD because you made the catch on your feet, completed it then dove. Therefore the dive is not part of the catch.


I don’t think your changes are actually changes.

If you're going out of bounds and you get three feet down and lose control today it's not a catch. James had a foot and a knee then dove forward. That's the equivalent of two feet. Three steps in play it's at the discretion of the officials on a fumble.

 

[Bill Lee]

As has been noted by other learned posters, Tomlin was on the Competition Committee when the current catch guidelines were put in place. How are they going to introduce this topic? - "Okay, all of us felt like the rules for a catch were fine a few years ago. But, since Mike feels like his team got screwed because of them, we've got to change them. Again."

Indeed.

The flowchart I posted just has six decisions to make. Shouldn't be too hard to apply them, unless of course applying them means your team gets "screwed".

Tomlin should be spending more time coaching his players on how to secure the ball rather than thinking of the changes he wants to get made in the off season. If his TE secures the ball, he wouldn't be bothered about what the current rule is.

 

[Ring 6]

If you're going out of bounds and you get three feet down and lose control today it's not a catch.

If you get 3 feet down you aren’t going to the ground to make the catch.

James had a foot and a knee then dove forward. That's the equivalent of two feet. Three steps in play it's at the discretion of the officials on a fumble.

James went to the ground completing the catch. He didn’t catch it then dive forward.
There really is no rule change that makes that s catch other than saying if you manage to have 2 hands on the football in the end zone it’s a TD even if you drop it.
Had James caught the ball then dive into the end zone it’s a catch. He didn’t. He went to the ground while making the catch.