Harbaugh is whining about the rules again.

[jah]

What they should change is plays subject to automatic review. If a guy reaches for the pylon and barely crosses the plane of the goal line, it's subject to automatic review if ruled a TD on the field, but not subject to automatic review if he's ruled down on the 1. Same thing if a guy makes a catch in the back end of the end zone and maybe gets both feet down, but maybe not.

That just doesn't make sense to me.

Similar idea - if it’s ruled a turnover on the field it’s subject to automatic review but if it’s not ruled a turnover, it’s not. That needs to be fixed as well.

The thing about this is it was supposed to be mitigated by having officials err on the side of calling close plays a TD or turnover, triggering the automatic review. I even remember commentary guys talking about this during games the first year the rule was active.

I'm not so sure officials are keeping that in mind anymore.

 

[PatsWSB47]

Whatever you do Drew Breeze, don't say you know what the rules are

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

What they should change is plays subject to automatic review. If a guy reaches for the pylon and barely crosses the plane of the goal line, it's subject to automatic review if ruled a TD on the field, but not subject to automatic review if he's ruled down on the 1. Same thing if a guy makes a catch in the back end of the end zone and maybe gets both feet down, but maybe not.

That just doesn't make sense to me.

Easiest fix would that all scoring plays are automatically reviewed and if a played was reversed on a challenge ( e.g. td pass ruled incomplete, did player cross pylon etc) it would be a scoring play make them automatically reviewed. Saves coaches from challenges and makes it more even....

 

[Hammer of Thor]

The thing about this is it was supposed to be mitigated by having officials err on the side of calling close plays a TD or turnover, triggering the automatic review. I even remember commentary guys talking about this during games the first year the rule was active.

I'm not so sure officials are keeping that in mind anymore.

The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t mesh with the rules of needing clear incontrovertible evidence to overturn the ruling on the field. If the referee thinks the player was short of the end zone, but decides to call touchdown so that they can get an automatic review, and then it turns out there is no good TV angle to see anything, then the ref has to keep it as a TD - which is not what he actually thought happened.

 

[Ras-IR Dowling]

Great point.
I believe be seen refs in doubt call TD or call turnover so that it will get reviewed.
So the incorrectly called TD gets reviewed, the incorrectly called NOT TD doesn’t.
The incorrectly called turnover gets reversed. The incorrectly called NOT turnover doesn’t.
It happened last night. Julio fumbled but it was called incomplete. The giants had to use a challenge.
Maybe they should do a quick review to see if a review is warranted on all close to scores or turnovers?

This screwed me out of a michel td weeks back when he was clearly but was ruled short of the goalline

 

[Ring 6]

This screwed me out of a michel td weeks back when he was clearly but was ruled short of the goalline

Maybe we should tell the NFL that this is important to fantasy football. Maybe they will change it then.

 

[jah]

The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t mesh with the rules of needing clear incontrovertible evidence to overturn the ruling on the field. If the referee thinks the player was short of the end zone, but decides to call touchdown so that they can get an automatic review, and then it turns out there is no good TV angle to see anything, then the ref has to keep it as a TD - which is not what he actually thought happened.

Yeah, you can't really have it both ways. To kind of fuse both of our points here, a problem is that officials aren't ruling based on incontrovertible evidence, they're increasingly ruling based on what they think happened. To me that makes more sense anyway so I don't mind it so much, but it does directly contradict how the whole system is purported by the NFL to work.

 

[Ring 6]

The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t mesh with the rules of needing clear incontrovertible evidence to overturn the ruling on the field. If the referee thinks the player was short of the end zone, but decides to call touchdown so that they can get an automatic review, and then it turns out there is no good TV angle to see anything, then the ref has to keep it as a TD - which is not what he actually thought happened.

That’s the other issue. Especially on short yardage plays at the goal line.

 

[Deus Irae]

They don't want people challenging willy nilly. You have to measure whether you actually think it will be overturned, but also whether the risk is worth the reward (like in the case of Edelman's incompletion). We don't need more challenges.

The notion that you should lose a challenge if you get it right is asinine.


"The refs screwed up, so challenge it"

"Call reversed"

"Great job spotting that, but now you're not allowed to get any more screw ups fixed"


Either eliminate replay challenges, or allow teams to challenge whenever they think calls should be challenged. You can always install a penalty for failed challenges.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Harbaugh phrased it poorly, but he has a point. There's a difference between the QB doing the move where he reaches out with the ball for the first down versus reaching out for the end zone. Once the ball crosses the plane of the end zone, that is a touchdown and the play is over. Anything that happens afterwards doesn't matter. But if you reach out for a first down and then pull the ball back, the play ain't over, and you don't get forward progress when you pull the ball backwards on your own.

Exactly. If a ballcarrier voluntarily moves the ball backwards forward progress does not apply.

This is the same as when a receiver catches the ball beyond the sticks, then while trying to evade tacklers runs back behind the sticks and is tackled. He does not get a first down. The ball will be spotted where he was tackled, not at the furthest downfield he got before retreating.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

The thing about this is it was supposed to be mitigated by having officials err on the side of calling close plays a TD or turnover, triggering the automatic review. I even remember commentary guys talking about this during games the first year the rule was active.

I'm not so sure officials are keeping that in mind anymore.

Good. They shouldn't be doing that. It's wrong for them to do that because calls are presumed correct during replay. Calling every close thing a TD just to make it go to replay will mean more non-TDs will be ruled TDs.

The refs should call the play as they see it and the rule should be changed so that near-scores and near-turnovers should be auto-reviewed.

 

[Sicilian]

The notion that you should lose a challenge if you get it right is asinine.


"The refs screwed up, so challenge it"

"Call reversed"

"Great job spotting that, but now you're not allowed to get any more screw ups fixed"


Either eliminate replay challenges, or allow teams to challenge whenever they think calls should be challenged. You can always install a penalty for failed challenges.

I wouldn't have a huge problem with what you're proposing. I would want a higher penalty than loss of timeout if that's going to be the case though. I don't know what would be fair, but if challenges are in the hands of the coaches I want there to be a risk to weigh to avoid unnecessary stoppages.

 

[Deus Irae]

I wouldn't have a huge problem with what you're proposing. I would want a higher penalty than loss of timeout if that's going to be the case though. I don't know what would be fair, but if challenges are in the hands of the coaches I want there to be a risk to weigh to avoid unnecessary stoppages.

1 or 2 "free" challenges, retained if a challenge is successful. It a team uses up its free challenge(s), you then can go either of two ways, as an easy option:

1. Any challenge that fails results in a yardage penalty for delay of game (I don't really care about the specifics of the yardage in this version. 5/10/15/whatever).
2. Any challenge that fails with a "stands" results in a 5 yard penalty for delay of game, and any challenge that fails with a "confirmed" results in a 15 yard penalty for delay of game.

And, if there's a concern about teams playing games with the challenges, a follow up can always involve the league issuing a fine to the team for abuse of the challenges. That'll have Goodell just itching to pull the trigger on wayward coaches.

 

[Sicilian]

1 or 2 "free" challenges, retained if a challenge is successful. It a team uses up its free challenges, you then can go either of two ways, as an easy option:

1. Any challenge that fails with results in a yardage penalty for delay of game (I don't really care about the specifics of the yardage in this version. 5/10/15/whatever).
2. Any challenge that fails with a "stands" results in a 5 yard penalty for delay of game, and any challenge that fails with a "confirmed" results in a 15 yard penalty for delay of game.

And, if there's a concern about teams playing games with the challenges, a follow up can always involve the league issuing a fine to the team for abuse of the challenges. That'll have Goodell just itching to pull the trigger on wayward coaches.

There aren't enough first round picks in the world to satiate Goodell if he could start docking us for "was that a fumble?"

 

[Pat the Pats Fan]

Let’s face it, harbawl wants to challenge not just any play, but also, any rule during the game that goes against the ratbirds

 

[1960Pats]

What they should change is plays subject to automatic review. If a guy reaches for the pylon and barely crosses the plane of the goal line, it's subject to automatic review if ruled a TD on the field, but not subject to automatic review if he's ruled down on the 1. Same thing if a guy makes a catch in the back end of the end zone and maybe gets both feet down, but maybe not.

That just doesn't make sense to me.

It's why the refs call TDs when it's close, to force the replay. It only sucks when there's not enough proof to overturn.

 

[1960Pats]

Typical crybaby loser Harbaugh.

That’s why Belichick didn’t challenge the Edelman ruling, even though he likely would have won. A nine yard gain on first down isn’t worth using a potential game changing challenge.

I can't remember the exact situation but that has come back to cost them points in the past. If I remember correctly they got called for a penalty after the non-challenge and had to settle for a FG when it looked like they had a TD. I do agree with his line of thinking though.

 

[1960Pats]

Here's the video of Harbawl's press conference...

 

[Silver Blue&Red]

Geez, this guy again??

WTF? Does it ever stop with this clown feeling dissed???

..And we all know Defamegate was started by this spoiled little b!tch.

 

[Silver Blue&Red]

I can't remember the exact situation but that has come back to cost them points in the past. If I remember correctly they got called for a penalty after the non-challenge and had to settle for a FG when it looked like they had a TD. I do agree with his line of thinking though.

But the problem is, that the game is supposed to fit the rules, not the rules suit an individual teams situation.

He should reserve his emotions, and stop challenging everything that he thinks his against him.

He's a ****