Bears win play challenge... Touchback for Green Bay

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Mikefive
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Adipost wrote:I believe the challenge was aboot ball placement, and with a ball placement challenge the officials can use their best judgment to spot the ball. Using their best judgment, they did make the correct call.
Technically, I think this is incorrect in that the toe went out of bounds on the 3, which is where they spotted the ball. The spot should be where the ball advanced to when the toe touched out of bounds, i.e., at or inside the 1.

This is the principal reason that Fox challenged the call.

I will say that a ball touched by an out of bounds player is a dead ball logic looks pretty reasonable to me. It appeared to me that when Cunningham's right hand touched or got very near the pylon, he moved it toward the ball touching the ball before it hit the pylon. He was clearly out of bounds at that point.
Last edited by Mikefive on Mon Nov 13, 2017 10:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Boris13c
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the official on the sideline following the play marked the spot where Cunningham's foot went out of bounds, and was doing the arm wave over the head thing prior to Cunningham losing the ball

at the 3, at the 2 or at the 1 - not much of a difference with first and goal ... and Fox should have accepted the first and goal call and moved on

and I'm really not interested in again hearing Riveron lie to us about shadows and ghosts on darkened replay footage telling us why the foot out of bounds wasn't
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Mikefive
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The thing that's maddening to me about this is that an official's undeniable error in spotting the ball wrong gave rise to this. Had they spotted the ball inside the one, then you as the coach could accept that and decide to run a QB sneak or something and move on. But from the two, with all the negative run plays we've had the last 2 weeks when teams are stuffing the box against the run, that makes you really think about it more. We'll never know if Fox would've made a different decision with a proper spot. But I just can't get over how stuff that goes wrong is subtly influenced by non-Bear screw ups. :angry:
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Boris13c
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but did they spot the ball wrong?

the official who was marking the spot on the sideline was marking where he saw Cunningham's foot go out of bounds which was between the 2 - 3 yard line (which was correct, but overturned on review)

so where was the ball as his foot went out of bounds? was he already extending it towards the pylon or did his foot go out before he extended?
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It looked to me like the ball was inside the one when his toe hit out of bounds. But I clearly don't know how instant replay even works at this point.
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Boris13c wrote:but did they spot the ball wrong?

the official who was marking the spot on the sideline was marking where he saw Cunningham's foot go out of bounds which was between the 2 - 3 yard line (which was correct, but overturned on review)

so where was the ball as his foot went out of bounds? was he already extending it towards the pylon or did his foot go out before he extended?
I think that when his toe finally touched out of bounds, he had already extended the ball forward and it was somewhere around the one. My understanding is that any player who is out of bounds and touches a ball makes it a dead ball, and I am almost positive that his hand touched the ball while the toe was out of bounds. He didn't have control of it at the time, but if that's right it should've made it a dead ball because that happened before the ball went out of the end zone. Granted, I haven't haven't watched the play since yesterday, but that is how I remember it.


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Otis Day wrote:The pic at the link below shows he does not have control of ball prior to it hitting the pylon.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Indeed, but control is irrelevant if the rule is that an out of bounds player has to merely touch the ball for the ball to be deemed to be out of bounds and that picture appears to clearly show that Cunningham's knee is down and his left hand is in contact with the ball.
Adipost wrote:No, he is not clearly, conclusively, inarguably touching the ball before it hits the pylon.
Even if the image Otis has linked to is not conclusive, and it looks pretty conclusive to me, surely the rule on replay is that there has to be conclusive evidence to change the ruling on the field?

The original ruling was that Cunningham was out of bounds short of the goal line. Unless it is absolutely clear that he was not in contact with the ball while out of bounds before the ball hits the pylon then shouldn't the call have stood?
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HisRoyalSweetness wrote:Even if the image Otis has linked to is not conclusive, and it looks pretty conclusive to me, surely the rule on replay is that there has to be conclusive evidence to change the ruling on the field?
ah, that is what the rule on replay review is SUPPOSED to be ... but we've all seen that what is supposed to happen isn't always what happens

like on the Zach Miller replay, where the fatheaded doofus is explaining why the catch was overturned while not even being able to identify where the fucking ball is on his own replay image ... there was nothing on that replay to warrant the call on the field to be overturned, and yet it was

HisRoyalSweetness wrote:The original ruling was that Cunningham was out of bounds short of the goal line. Unless it is absolutely clear that he was not in contact with the ball while out of bounds before the ball hits the pylon then shouldn't the call have stood?
I certainly believe so

there was no conclusive evidence to me for the call on the field to be overturned ... Fox should have lost the challenge and a timeout but it still should have been Bears ball around the 2 (the original call) ... and yet, it was overturned

and you can find an almost endless list of similar situations that impact other teams, not just the Bears ... the NFL replay system is broken as they no longer adhere to their own rules on what warrants a play to be overturned ... moving the decision making process to the New York center was supposed to make things better but from what I have seen, the exact opposite seems to be the case
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