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It is a rule that rarely comes into play. In fact it is discussed far more often than it actually happens in the game. But the time the so-called Tuck Rule was applied in a snowy Raiders–Patriots game was enough to get fans of all stripes to unite in cause to demand the repeal.

What many perceived as a fumble recovery by the Raiders, sealing the fate of the Patriots, was overturned by a replay review. The fumble by Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was now a harmless incomplete pass; the Patriots had new life to tie the score and then win in overtime.

The Tuck Rule gave Brady an advantage, because as he reconsidered throwing a pass, he had not yet tucked the ball back to his body, and thus, was by the letter of the rule, still engaging in a forward pass.

At the time, director of officiating Mike Pereira — whose title was later elevated to vice-president of officiating — defended the rule because it gave objective criteria to referees to determine when a quarterback, who withdraws from a pass attempt during a throwing motion, becomes a runner again. Tucking the ball back towards the body is an objective criteria, but the rulebook (Rule 3, Section 21, Article 2) considers the end of the tucking motion, and not the start of, as the conclusion of the throwing motion:

Note 2: When [an offensive] player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement of his hand starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back toward his body.

Fast forward to this past weekend, when the Tuck Rule again reversed a fumble recovery for the defense. The Ravens dominated the game, so the missed opportunity was inconsequential to the result.

Pereira now works as a rules analyst for Fox Sports, and he has reconsidered his position on the Tuck Rule:

This was clearly a correct reversal, but is it time to look at this rule because Cassel was not attempting to pass the ball when it came loose.

I think it’s time to change this rule. A pass should only be ruled incomplete if the ball comes loose in the actual act of passing the ball. If it comes loose in the tucking motion, then it should be a fumble.

I would support a rule change, although it took me a long time to get to this point. I’m sure it’s no consolation to the many Raiders fans around the country.

Pereira is not just any opinion, however. Even though he no longer holds a position with the league, the NFL’s Competition Committee will likely take note of Pereira’s shift and suggest a change to the rule. Pereira’s influence has seemed to increase as a now-independent auditor of the league’s officiating.

And, maybe people will stop bothering referee Walt Coleman about the correct call he made on that day.

Pereira also summarized other calls made during the wild card games, which you can compare to our analysis (part 1 | part 2).

It was a solution looking for a problem.

In 1941, the NFL adopted the sudden-death overtime into the rulebook, initially to break ties only in divisional playoff games (at that time divisional playoffs were similar to baseball’s one-game playoff). It was expanded to include the league championship (actually, all postseason games, including the future wild-card playoffs) in 1946, with the first use in the 1957 championship game now known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” In 1974, the league allowed for a single overtime period to be added to regular season and exhibition tie games.

Up to the conclusion of the 2009 season, that was the entire history of the modification to overtime rules. Three sentences only, and in each case, expanding overtime to a wider set of games.

No extra innings. No field-goal shootouts. No rematches. Its brutally final and decisive verdict of fortune is so very defining of football, comedian George Carlin famously contrasted it to baseball’s relatively relaxed and semantically smooth system of extra innings. (Story continues after this comedy break.)

Last March, change came for the sake of change. As Competition Committee co-chairman Rich McKay stated, “sometimes you want to get ahead of a problem and not behind it.” The change was to protect the game from something so unfair, that it was feared it would tarnish the result of sports’ ultimate championship game. According to McKay, “we really felt like you wouldn’t want that game to end — a Super Bowl, a conference championship game — where there’s a kickoff, one pass, field goal, game over.”

The league owners, on the recommendation of the Competition Committee, passed a system of “modified sudden death,” but did so in a cowardly fashion: by deliberately moving the item up on the owners’ meeting agenda so that coaches and players were not present to raise any objections with the plan.

Overtime now allows for a rebuttal by the team that surrenders a first-possession field goal. There was supposedly a fundamental unfairness that a defense that allowed a team to advance into field-goal range was somehow determined by the flip of a coin. Since the kickoff location was moved to the 30-yard line in 1994, the percentage of field goals on the first possession went from 17.9 percent to 26.2 percent. While a significant statistical difference, the Competition Committee pins this solely on the kickoff location rule, rather than the other rules changes in that span that favored the offense, particularly in the passing game.

The modified sudden death applies only to playoff games. However, in 27 postseason overtime games, only three — including last year’s NFC Conference Championship — were decided on a one-possession field goal.

The Competition Committee had other proposals. “I have a file that’s this thick with overtime recommendations and changes,” said co-chairman McKay, without divulging some of the alternate proposals.

Modified sudden-death overtime rules

As best they can be summarized, without needless complexity, the modified sudden death will differ as follows:

• Modified sudden death only applies in the cases where the team receiving the opening kickoff scores a field goal on the opening drive. In all other cases, standard sudden death will apply (a touchdown, a safety, or a field goal after first possession).
• If there is any change of possession or the receiving team does not recover the kickoff, they have surrendered the first possession, and standard sudden death applies.
• If a field goal is scored, the trailing team will receive the ensuing kickoff. Then, if the trailing team…
  • …scores a touchdown, the game ends, and the touchdown decides the result.
  • …loses possession, including on downs, the game ends immediately.
  • …scores a tying field goal, the overtime reverts to a standard sudden death.

Jets trainer Sal Alosi, who was suspended for the remainder of the 2010 season and postseason for tripping an opponent, has confirmed conspiracy theories that there was a deliberate attempt to ensnare a member of the Dolphins’ punt coverage.

Alosi admitted to the Jets, after his original discipline was announced, that he aligned inactive Jets players in a 5-yard sideline flank intending on creating an obstacle along the sideline. There is no specific “rule” against it, other than it is unsportsmanlike conduct.

However, there are sideline restrictions in place, but officials are unable to patrol sideline activity, unless it involves the boundary line or some obvious interference from the sidelines. I can recall attending an NFL game on a windy day where the referee directed stadium security to call the sideline because of an allegation that a large door was opened when the visiting team had the ball. The referee wasn’t monitoring the situation, but directed stadium personnel to take charge.

Nonetheless, the NFL issued a reminder to all 32 teams that sideline interference harms the integrity of the game, as if that needed to be said. However, there is one new point of enforcement in the league’s memo:

To assist with the enforcement of this rule, effective immediately, all game officials are being instructed not to engage in any prolonged discussion with any coach outside of the permitted zone while play is in progress.

Because this is a midseason change of mechanics, this automatically places it on the Competition Committee’s agenda for the offseason. We will put it on ours, as well.

The entirety of the NFL’s statement is after the jump.

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The Jets, in consultation with the NFL, assessed a watered-down punishment on Sal Alosi, a trainer who tripped Dolphins special-teams player Nolan Carroll. According to the team, he has been suspended for the remainder of the season, including the postseason, and fined $25,000. He was not fired. The lower amount of his fine, compared to Titans coordinator Chuck Cecil, is likely due to his lower comparative salary. (Alosi is a strength and conditioning coach, not one of the field tacticians.)

However, as pointed out at Pro Football Talk, there is something more sinister afoot. While the video shows Alosi tripping Carroll on a sideline punt-coverage route, Alosi is flanked by five other Jets staff members. Keeping in mind that punt coverage players tend to go out of bounds frequently (either on their own or aided by the opponent), this obstruction has all of the hallmarks of being deliberatly disruptive to the game.

Of course, the excuse of the coaching staff is that they are in the designated bench area of the sidelines, and that no one is standing on the off-limits, six-foot-wide white boundary line. However, a player who is headed out of bounds can step around a single person who is standing in the mandatory bench location. When five yards of sideline are being “covered,” there is little that a player can do to avoid a collision or entanglement.

On the field, it is illegal to create a wedge when blocking on a kick return. This is defined as at least three players forming a “wall” to block the full-speed defenders headed towards the ball carrier. The Competition Committee found this to be dangerous, and the NFL outlawed the formation (by making it a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty) in 2009. What happened on the Jets sideline, while not a true wedge, created up a situation where collision was inevitable.

So, yes, the team staff was where they were allowed to be, however their actions show that they had an alleged inclination for tampering with the integrity of the game.

Updated 12/14. A previous version of this post stated that the NFL suspended and fined Alosi, when it was the team’s action in consultation with the league office.

During the search to replace Mike Pereira as vice-president of officiating, we commented that Pereira’s replacement must have the talent to be the most visible  member of NFL management. By virtue of the weekly “Official Review” segment on the NFL Network’s NFL Total Access, the referee boss would be seen more often by the public than even the NFL commissioner.

Last September, we laid out the qualifications for the next head referee, based on participation in “Official Review”:

This involves presentation skills far more polished than a 10-second announcement over the public-address system. A successful candidate must also navigate and rise above the flood of faux hipness that the network talking heads constantly exude.

Carl Johnson was hired in the offseason to take Pereira’s job in the league office, while Pereira went to Fox Sports as sort of a rules interpretation jukebox. Since the first week of the season, Johnson has been unseen by the public, the “retired” Pereira has remained the de facto expert voice on controversial calls.

The NFL Network has opted to replace Official Review with a new segment simply titled Competition Committee. The segment can be just as simply summarized: one of three members of the NFL Competition Committee has six minutes to (1) discuss the most controversial rule of the week, (2) discuss why the rule is written the way it is, and (3) field lobbying efforts for changing said rule in the offseason. To fill the time, the member of the Competition Committee will often repeat several of the bullet points from earlier in the discussion until the viewer changes the channel.

The first week of Competition Committee featured a discussion of the process of the catch, after the Lions had an apparent touchdown taken off the scoreboard. Colts president Bill Pollian handled the duties (video). Week 2 was hosted by Titans coach and Competition Committee co-chairman Jeff Fisher holding an NFL Network stick mic way too close to his face in a room apparently no larger than a confessional (video). Fisher discussed the perceived inconsistency with roughing-the-passer penalties, but I could not watch the entire thing.

It’s not known why the NFL decided to shift the focus from the judges to the lawmakers, however, Fox Sports is willing to pick up the slack, with Pereira providing the instant Official Review, at least for the games broadcast by Fox.

The NFL has ramped up its policy on avoiding concussions, and the policy has not excluded the referees. With high speed collisions involving the umpire position, the NFL has permanently moved the umpire to the offensive backfield, nine years after a pilot program of the switch was tried in the 2001 preseason.

The most violent collision from the 2009 season didn’t even involve the umpire, but a back judge covering a kickoff return. Rich Reels was bruised up quite a bit and had to sit a week out when he was caught off balance and hit by an upfield blocker. In addition to Reels’ injury, there were reports of concussions and other injuries. The league even considered giving the umpire a helmet.

The umpire position will be opposite the referee in the offensive backfield.

The umpire will now be located in the offensive backfield, rather than the center of the defensive backfield. The umpire will operate on the side opposite the referee, who is generally positioned on the side of the quarterback’s throwing arm. However, after the two minute warning in either half, the umpire will return to the defensive backfield.

There are no changes indicated in the 2010 NFL rule book under the umpire’s duties as a result of this change. (Oddly, the position of the umpire is not and never was discussed in the rule book, despite other officials’ positions being indicated.) However, there is a private manual for officials that express finer details of officiating mechanics which was overhauled.

The umpire will have to quickly set in position after maintaining the ball spot at the line of scrimmage. Once an offense comes to the line, the umpire must retreat to the offensive backfield (while avoiding the players moving from the huddle to the line of scrimmage) rather than a few yards behind the ball. Usually, the offense has to wait about a second for the umpire to be set, but it will likely take longer with the new positioning.

It will be interesting to see some of the bugs worked out in the preseason, and we will update you on any refinements as we are aware of them.

The original image used in the illustration is credited to Pats1 at en.wikipedia.

NFL OWNERS APPROVE ‘MODIFIED SUDDEN DEATH’

We think that the overtime format, more than 50 years removed from its first use with no modification, has worked just fine. However, if we were on the Competition Committee—and we had to make a modification to overtime—we would have considered the following proposals before “modified sudden death.”

1. Move the kickoff to the 35. The simplest solution to reverse the field-position advantage gained when kickoffs were moved back to the 30 yard line is to move the overtime kickoffs to the 35.

2. Replace the coin toss in overtime. Rather than let an arbitrary coin flip “decide overtime,” as is often (incorrectly) argued (roughly a 60/40 advantage goes to the coin-toss winner), use an on-field element to determine the first possession in overtime. By giving possession to the team last in the lead, a team couldn’t score a last-second tying field goal in regulation, win the coin toss, and then have the first possession in overtime (essentially preventing two consecutive possessions at the end of the game to the trailing team).

3. Start overtime from the fourth quarter dead-ball spot. A slightly more radical proposal would do away with the coin toss and kickoff to start overtime, and have the teams merely switch sides of the field as if the beginning of regulation was the same as the beginning of the second or fourth quarters. The only way* overtime could have a kickoff would be if the final play of regulation is the game-tying score. The slight downside is a tie game at the two-minute warning gives no urgency, as the offense could grind out a ten-minute drive through the first eight minutes of overtime, although that would be because it was allowed by the defense. (*There would also be no kickoff starting the third overtime period, either, but that has never happened in an NFL game.)

4. Best kickoff return. This is the most radical suggestion, and not my favortite, but only slightly better than the proposal voted by the owners. Essentially conduct two kickoffs to start overtime, with the team attaining the best field position keeping the ball. Of course, back-to-back runbacks to the house would turn overtime into a home-run derby.

NFL OWNERS APPROVE ‘MODIFIED SUDDEN DEATH’

The Competition Committee moved on changing the dynamic of postseason overtime on a nonexistent platform: field position after a kickoff gives a short field for an easy put-the-game-away field goal.

In postseason play, this situation has happened only three times. Yes, only three times has a team advanced the ball in overtime from kickoff to field goal in a playoff game, most recently in the 2009 NFC Championship game where the Saints advanced over the Vikings.

The Vikings, not one to sour on their lost destiny, voted against the modified sudden-death proposal. The Bills, Bengals and Ravens were the only others to reject the proposal

NFL OWNERS APPROVE ‘MODIFIED SUDDEN DEATH’

Unintended consequences of the new rule (that we see) are:

• Overtime can end on an unspectacular loss on downs, or worse, a measurement.
• Now, imagine a team is short on fourth down by measurement, the other team begins to celebrate a win, and the replay booth challenges the first-down spot — and the offense gets the first down! That is going to be an ugly scene, with a capital UGLY!
• There is less risk in tying the game at the conclusion of regulation, rather than boldly going for the lead.
• A team scoring the opening-possession field goal can follow up with an onside kick, ending the game if they recover (OK, that would be kinda cool, I suppose).
• The inequity supposedly created by the kickoff return offering field-goal prime field position is not remedied if both teams score field goals on their first possessions. This is because the next possession is sudden death, and it begins with the oh-so-dreaded kickoff.
• Defensive errors, magnified in overtime, can be softened when a second chance is awarded after surrendering a field goal.
• Somehow, a single drive in overtime ending in a field goal is unacceptable, but a game-winning field goal that breaks a tie at the expiration of the fourth quarter is just fine without a retaliatory possession by the losing team.

We will be adding to this list as a stream of consciousness. Add your suggestions in the comments.

1st major modification in league history

Yes, that headline is screaming. And for good reason. The NFL now can’t simply resolve a tie game much like Major League Baseball (if necessary, play till 5 a.m. to resolve .006  percentage points in the standings), the NHL (after five minutes, go to a shootout that resembles pregame warmups), and NCAA football (a sudden-life format that was called “last licks” in my elementary school days).

The NFL owners approved a “modified sudden death” system, in that a field goal on the first possession of overtime extends the overtime period for a retaliatory possession by the other team. If the score is then equalized, then the next score wins the game. Therefore, the “catch-up” team must score at least a tying field goal on the second possession to stay alive. A touchdown at any time ends the game.

Oddly, this is only implemented for the postseason. The league stance is that there are already separate rules for regular season and the postseason. (This difference is merely that one overtime is permitted in the regular season and an additional timeout is given in postseason.) This may be to avoid an odd, but plausible, circumstance where an overtime session only lasts two possessions because of two conservative, ball-controlling offenses, and thus adding the clock into that second possession.

Competition Committee members Bill Polian and Rich McKay (Colts and Falcons presidents) explained that there were fundamental inequities to the team losing the coin toss in overtime. We will dissect them in another post. You can watch the news conference here.