Zebra Blog

For his involvement in a sideline fight during the game with the Texans, Titans defensive tackle Jason Jones received a $5,000 fine. (He was also ejected from the game.) This is surprisingly light, as the disqualified Jones was shown pumping up the crowd for support on his way to the locker room. This is tantamount to criticizing the referee’s call, as he is looking to be applauded for his unsportsmanlike behavior. That alone merits higher discipline, considering Santonio Holmes’ Super Bowl XLIII touchdown celebration was fined $10,000 for another unsportsmanlike gesture.

The lower fine might be a result of the video of the game not clearly showing a punch being thrown. However, Jones clearly thrust himself into the situation and escalated it. The league’s Schedule of Fines lists “Unnecessarily Entering Fight Area (active involvement)” as a minimum of $5,000 on first offense, less than the $10,000 for fighting which would be assessed for a punch.

Update 9/25/09: The league is reporting two Texans were also fined. Jacoby Jones was fined $5,000 for entering a fight area as well. Andre Johnson, who was also flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after the play, was fined $7,500 for pulling a player to the ground by the facemask. Neither was ejected from the game.

Without getting into tremendous detail, the Week 2 edition of “Official Review” (two-part video that aired on NFL Net and NFL.com) covered the same topics we covered this week. The assessments we gave on the calls were entirely backed up by the league’s vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira. The calls under Official Review:

• The call of interference with a fair catch on the Titans
• The interception caught off of a foot by the Giants, overturned on replay, but the return nullified.
• The catch possession through to the ground was discussed as it pertained to the Texans and Panthers touchdowns being upheld. Also, the Dolphins had an interception overturned on Monday Night Football on similar grounds (video highlight at 1:05).

The segment also covered the noncontroversial call on the last play of the Bengals–Packers game. With the clock about to expire, referee Ed Hochuli ruled that the game was over prior to the snap. He then corrected the call that there was one second left on the clock, but since the Packers were not set in their stance at the snap, it was a false-start penalty. Of course, a false start with the clock running under two minutes also includes a 10-second runoff, which then consumed the one second. It was only a matter of clean bookkeeping, as the game ended without a play being run under both circumstances.

Pereira did express regret that the catch/ground issue has been so misconstrued and misunderstood only two weeks into the season. Whether this results in a Competition Committee review (as he alluded to with the Titans interference play) remains to be seen.

Pro Football Talk is reporting that the league office is backing up two borderline touchdown calls from the weekend: Dante Rosario’s catch for the Panthers and Jacoby Jones’s reception for the Titans.

According to league spokesman, Greg Aiello:

On Rosario, he completed the catch, turned up field and stretched the ball over the goal line for a touchdown before he goes to the ground. He didn’t use the ground to complete the catch.  In the Oakland play, Murphy goes straight to the ground.

On Jacoby Jones, he caught the ball, his knee hit the ground, and he maintained possession. Then the Titans player flipped him over the top and [Jones] hit the ground a second time and lost the ball.  But it was already a touchdown by virtue of maintaining possession the first time he hit the ground.

The assessment from the league fairly consistent with our previous discussions on the topic, albeit still controversial.

This season’s first “Official Review” on the NFL Network signature program NFL Total Access offers us a double dip from the league’s vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira. In addition to the cablecast segment (video), we were treated to a web-exclusive extended segment (video). The topics:

• The reversed touchdown catch by Louis Murphy of the Raiders that we covered here (and here). Pereira mentions the catch “process” that we described, and even used the same clip from preseason that appeared on 2009 Media Tape #1 that we referred to in that first post.
• In the Steelers–Titans game, Cortland Finnegan signaled a fair catch immediately upon the punt, which was too early.
• Al Harris of the Packers was flagged incorrectly for illegal contact on the Bears’ receiver Devon Hester, which NFL Network commentator Rich Eisen aptly described as “turnstyling.” This was under the jurisdiction of field judge Jim Howey.
• A touchdown catch by Braylon Edwards of the Browns after he was driven out of bounds by Cedric Griffin of the Vikings. Since the action that placed Edwards out of bounds was a penalty, all Edwards had to do was reestablish two feet in bounds, which replay showed he just barely missed. Second-year side judge Keith Washington was covering the play, and we’ll consider that he called it correctly, even though the call was reversed by the benefit of replay.

Week 1: Chargers at Raiders

As a follow-up to our in-game post about the reversal to Louis Murphy’s touchdown call, referee Carl Cheffers spoke with a pool reporter following the game regarding the controversial call. The transcript:

Cheffers: We had a situation where the receiver caught the pass in the air and as he is coming down to the ground, he is actually going to the ground. That’s a defined term in our rule book, a player, a receiver who is going to the ground. The rule book says, if a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass, with or without contact by opponent—so that can be on his own; In this case, he got hit by an opponent—he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or in the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete. That wasn’t the case. What we ruled, what we saw in replay, was that he was going to the ground, as he came down the ball came loose, he lost control of the ball, the ball skidded along the ground, he eventually completely lost control of the ball. So, by rule, by what we saw in review, it’s an incomplete pass.

Q: So, this has nothing to do with him having both feet down—it has nothing to do with that, it has nothing to do with making a football move? It’s just what you said there?

Cheffers: Yeah, he was up, I think if I remember, [on] one foot, he was getting contacted prior to his second foot coming down. By definition in our rule book, he’s going to the ground and has to maintain possession of the ball throughout the entire act of the catch. And in this case, he lost possession and the ball hit the ground. Therefore, it’s incomplete.

Q: It was pretty clear-cut?

Cheffers: Pretty clear-cut.

As a side note, the reference to “a football move” is old language to the determination of a catch. It is no longer used to define a reception.

In a tape release to the media, vice president of officiating, Mike Pereira, defined the catch in two circumstances. First, when a receiver is going to the ground (either on his own or due to contact by a defender), the receiver must maintain possession as he hits the ground.

The second situation is slightly more complicated. In situations where a receiver does not go to the ground, he must maintain possession for a recognizable element of time. In other words, a freeze frame or slow-motion replay by itself cannot be used to determine that the process of a catch has been completed. If it is nearly simultaneous that the second foot comes down and the ball is dropped—so much so that it can’t be determined without slow-motion—then it is incomplete. Replay reviews are shown at regular speed for final determination; this “element of time” perception is the language that replaced the “football move” determination.