Sports

Sole Possession of First

Well I just finished watching the Bears beat the Lions in overtime. I’ll talk more about this on Tuesday morning, but I just wanted to say one quick thing. I was pretty mad about that backward lateral/forward pass controversy. When you watch the replay, it was one of those plays where if the ruling on the field was a lateral, there’s no way they could overturn it, but if the ruling on the field is an incomplete pass, there’s no way they could overturn it. Now what I’m mad about is the fact that the “ruling on the field” was decided almost 5 minutes after the play, after the refs had discussed it with Mariucci. In fact, there was even a moment when you saw the ref virtually ask Mooch if an incomplete pass with an intentional grounding penalty was okay (maybe if he’d kept arguing, he could have changed it into a Detroit field goal or something). Now the whistle never blew on that play, so how can the ruling on the field be anything but a backward lateral? The ruling on the field is what was ruled on the field immediately. I don’t understand how you can conference for 5 minutes within earshot of Mooch (who’s of course going to yell about the play, that’s what he’s paid to do) to decide what the ruling on the field was, when it had already been ruled a touchdown, by virtue of the whistle not being blown. The Bears ended up winning anyway, so no harm done as far as I’m concerned, but that play would have been a lot more pivotal had the Bears not won. I just wanted to make sure I say something about that before I forget.

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