You, uh, didn’t read my whole post. He’d do this in the middle of the field to get a first down- not a TD. All the time. And the refs would give it to him. It never made sense.
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Yeah, my bad. Misread it. I think there are some allowances given for specific situations (like the QB spike not being intentional grounding, no sacks for kneel downs, etc… hitting the snapper at all on kicking plays), but I’m not sure how that would apply here to short yardage NOT at the goal line.
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A safety wasn’t the worst thing that could happen there. Fox was having an off night and punting from deep in your end zone can be sketchy
If they don’t get called for holding on the long return after the safety could have gotten very interesting. Believe it was returned 50 yards or so. The holding call basically ended the game. I think it was the right call but it often doesn’t get called. Jack Fox had to make the tackle.
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Appreciate the clarifications. Makes more sense now, and I can see how it may have actually benefitted the Lions even if it was not the plan. Thx!
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That’s how I have always wanted the rule to be enforced. However, it is not. I have watched many, many games where the offense is given the “benefit of the doubt” if they manage to get “something” out of the endzone…its not a safety.
I don’t care what the actual rule is. I’ve seen too much football at this point. How they called this play was inconsistent with how they have called other plays as it pertains to safety. Period.
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Mr. Bates made that tackle.
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Bates has clearly been working w/Foxy
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Yes, I agree. It HAS been called differently in the past, and it almost was again on Monday night.
Two explanations, I think:
(a) When its the Lions, there are different rules.
(b) The automatic replay intervention from the booth is cleaning things up a bit, and making things more consistent with the real rules.
I think there is something to (b)
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Up by 15 in the 4th quarter. Who wants to give Seattle the ball with a short field kicking out of the back of the endzone.
Nope! Here you go, a two point gift, and now, you have to win the old fashioned way. An inch at a time.
Goff did a fantastic job selling it.
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Especially against the Packers.
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I don’t know, I don’t think i have ever seen a call like this where the ball gets spotted without forward progress. For instance rb runs 1 yard into the pile slides off the pile and touches down at the line of scrimmage. That play is always a 1 yard gain.
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The ball carrier has to make a yardage gain for forward progress to apply. Think of a QB taking a sack after a seven step dropback from under center, the ball isn’t spotted 6 inches behind the previous spot (where he received it from the snap) due to forward progress, it’s spotted six or seven yards back where the ball was when the QB is down by contact. Goff didn’t get beyond the line of scrimmage ergo forward progress isn’t a thing.
A punted ball can bounce across the goal line and be batted back into the field of play as long as the player batting it nor the ball touch the goal line or the endzone prior to batting the ball. Just another instance where the ball can cross the goal line without forward progress being awarded.
This play is completely different than a QB dropping back to pass the ball and in control of where he is on the field. In this case Goff was in the process of being tackled and repositioned his out stretched arms, probably to brace for impact with the ground.
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It’s really simple, you have to get past the line of scrimmage for forward progress to apply. Goff did not get past the line of scrimmage, so it doesn’t matter whether he reached out or whatever, it’s where the ball is when he is down by contact.