Bears win play challenge... Touchback for Green Bay

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Mikefive
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This play needs it's own discussion thread.

Here's how it played out from my TV view.

Looked like Cunningham got a TD when they ran the play as he seemed to have the ball in his hand and he hit the pylon. I didn't notice where his feet were. Didn't see where they spotted the ball, although clearly it was short. None of the replays I saw before the challenge showed the ball loose. Thus, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but unless the coaching staff can see other angle replays immediately after the play, I don't see any reason to criticize them. Cunningham said he thought it was a TD, thus unaware that the ball was out, so loose ball wasn't communicated to the coaches by him. They simply didn't have the information.

Then they showed the first replay set. Those didn't clearly show the ball coming loose, although they did show his foot dragging over the out of bounds line before the ball hit the pylon. I assessed at this point that the ball should be spotted about a half a yard away.

After commercial, they showed a down the line replay angle which indeed showed the ball coming loose from the hand before hitting the pylon. However, it was difficult to tell exactly when the ball left the hand and the shot didn't show the foot hitting the out of bounds line. Thus, there was no way to tell if the ball was out first or the toe touched the line first. Thus, the ruling should've been inconclusive on whether a fumble occurred or not. Thus, it should revert to as called which was foot out of bounds, no fumble.

Here's a highlight show replay, which was compressed from the game telecast, but it shows the 3 replay views which I believe upholds my assessment.

That was my assessment. In all the media discussion I've heard, I hear some people saying the foot didn't go out of bounds and the ball definitely left Cunningham's hand. But I positively saw the foot drag over the white line. What am I missing????
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KOP_Snake
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The refs got this one way wrong, but not for the reason everyone is saying.

If a player's foot (or hand or knee or whatever) is touching out of bounds, and they touch the loose ball, the ball is ruled dead out of bounds.

Now the ruling happened because it appeared Cunningham lost control of the ball before his foot touched out, so he was "mid fumble" as the ball touched the pylon and it was a touchback. The problem is that even though he doesn't have control of the ball, he is still CLEARLY, CONCLUSIVELY, INARGUABLY TOUCHING THE BALL BEFORE IT HITS THE PYLON.

Therefore dead ball at the half yard line. Period.

The refs fucked that one up big time.
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HisRoyalSweetness
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Good shout KOP!
2017 NFL RULEBOOK

SECTION 21 - OUT OF BOUNDS, INBOUNDS, AND INBOUNDS SPOT

ARTICLE 3. BALL OUT OF BOUNDS

Item 2: Loose Ball. A loose ball is out of bounds when it touches a boundary line or anything that is on or outside such line, including a player, an official, or a pylon.

ARTICLE 4. OUT-OF-BOUNDS SPOT

Item 1. Loose Ball. If a Loose Ball touches anything on or outside a boundary line, the Out-of-Bounds Spot is the forward point of the ball when the ball crosses the sideline.
There's nothing to say the player in question cannot be the one who fumbled. This should be raised with the various media outlets to see if they'll press the NFL on the issue. It would be fascinating to hear the NFL's response!
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WP.1
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KOP_Snake wrote:The refs got this one way wrong, but not for the reason everyone is saying.

If a player's foot (or hand or knee or whatever) is touching out of bounds, and they touch the loose ball, the ball is ruled dead out of bounds.

Now the ruling happened because it appeared Cunningham lost control of the ball before his foot touched out, so he was "mid fumble" as the ball touched the pylon and it was a touchback. The problem is that even though he doesn't have control of the ball, he is still CLEARLY, CONCLUSIVELY, INARGUABLY TOUCHING THE BALL BEFORE IT HITS THE PYLON.

Therefore dead ball at the half yard line. Period.

The refs fucked that one up big time.
it sure look so but the one cam shows the ball is free in air and next time he touch it is after the ball hit the pylon.
right now at this moment knee out of bounds is just a maybe.
https://imgur.com/83oKxEm


still Miller TD Riveron should be fired immediately.
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Adipost
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KOP_Snake wrote:The refs got this one way wrong, but not for the reason everyone is saying.

If a player's foot (or hand or knee or whatever) is touching out of bounds, and they touch the loose ball, the ball is ruled dead out of bounds.

Now the ruling happened because it appeared Cunningham lost control of the ball before his foot touched out, so he was "mid fumble" as the ball touched the pylon and it was a touchback. The problem is that even though he doesn't have control of the ball, he is still CLEARLY, CONCLUSIVELY, INARGUABLY TOUCHING THE BALL BEFORE IT HITS THE PYLON.

Therefore dead ball at the half yard line. Period.

The refs fucked that one up big time.
No, he is not clearly, conclusively, inarguably touching the ball before it hits the pylon.
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Otis Day
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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;
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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;
Yes, but I have to agree with Adi. It looks like his right knee is down out of bounds, and his right hand is still on the football. I have been saying all along that the refs made the right call with the touchback, but this picture shows that it SHOULD have been deadball at the 1/2 yard line. Whatever the correct call. SOMEONE on Fox's coaching staff should have said, 'don't challenge this, it could be a touchback.' Take the ball on the 1 yard line, with 1st down and goal to go. Just shitty coaching, and shitting decision making.
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yes, the rule about maintaining control of the ball has been enforced in a couple of earlier games this season ... most notable one cost the Jets a win ... so while I understand why runners do the whole extend the ball thing, if they don't have the hand strength to maintain control then it can hurt more than it helps

I also think the refs blew it because it appeared to me Cunningham's foot dragged out of bounds prior to him reaching to the pylon ... play should have been dead and ball down at that point, which was the original and correct call ... but on replay, they specifically said the runner was not out of bounds, leading to the loss of control of the ball at the pylon being Goon Bay's ball at the 20

that said, the ruling that went against the Bears is not really the issue here

the issue is why in the world would this play be worthy of a replay challenge? second quarter of the game, and you get a 1st and goal at the 2 yard line ... what you should do is accept that and move on ... but to Fox it is something you're going to challenge? really? this to me shows a clear lack of understanding about what the replay system is there for ... and this idiot challenge trumps any stupid one Lovie tried and failed on

the kicker here is the replay resulted in the Bears turning the ball over to Goon Bay instead of having a 1st and goal at the 2, but Fox winning the challenge ... which makes the whole thing so Bearsy - stupid and incomprehensible
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Adipost
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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.
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Boris13c
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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.

the original call was correct, so Fox should have lost the challenge and it should have been Bears ball at around the 2 yard line

but on review, they got the call wrong IMO ... which comically resulted in Fox winning the challenge and the Bears turning over the ball
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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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