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.

I knew once I saw the video of Jacoby Jones’s touchdown catch for the Texans that this would need explaining. It did not take long before and comment came in linking it to the Raiders’ overturned touchdown last week. (By the way, I vow that this is the last time that we will mention the Raider reversal—it has been thoroughly beaten to death.)

If you haven’t seen the play from the Texans game, here’s the video.

As we wrote last week, if a receiver is going to the ground, the receiver must maintain possession through to the ground. In the case of the Raiders touchdown, receiver Louis Murphy caught the ball, got two feet down, his butt landed in the end zone and then his torso landed. At that point the ball squirted out and touched the turf. By the rules, that is an incomplete pass, as the receiver did not maintain possession down to the ground.

As for the Texans touchdown, Jacoby Jones caught the ball falling to the ground. He bounced off of Cortland Finnegan of the Titans on his way to the ground. Finnegan then pulled Jones back down to the turf where Jones dropped the ball on the ground. The Raider Nation was looking for vindication: surely, this will be overturned on review.

Except the fact that the two plays are not the same.

When Jones lands on the opponent, he has gone to the ground, because the next thing that happens is that he gets pulled back up by Finnegan. Since Jones landed once, there is no requirement for him to land again on the ground. (Keep in mind, this is completely separate than the down-by-contact rule which says that the ball carrier is not down if he is on top of an opponent.) Had Finnegan not slightly lifted Jones, there might have been a case for a reversal.

In the Raiders situation, Murphy goes to the ground, first by his rear, and then continues downward. His rear contacting the ground is not enough (again, we are not applying the down-by-contact rules), as he was still going down to the ground.

I will admit it was a borderline call, but ultimately the right call. It was upheld on replay. Walt Coleman was the referee, Bill Spyksma was the replay official; as best I can tell, back judge Steve Freeman was covering on the play.

• 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.

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.