The Pick Play That Got Gordon Open

[H2o]

I don't have a link to the video or anything, but imo it was obvious as they get. Fouts couldn't get the Patriots' balls out of his eye sockets enough to be able to describe the reality of what happened. The Pats TE/WR/Wahtever is coming across acting like he is running a crossing route, looks directly at our db, changes his path to cut him off sticking his leg out in the process, but because he magically gets out of the way before blowing him up it is not a penalty? Say the DB doesn't try to protect himself by avoiding the contact and gets injured doing so, because the c*nt clearly threw his leg out there, would that have warranted a flag then? Imo, this is just another example of how the Patriots are held to a separate standard apart from the one the rest of the league is held to. 

[Patrick Duffy]

4 minutes ago, H2o said:

I don't have a link to the video or anything, but imo it was obvious as they get. Fouts couldn't get the Patriots' balls out of his eye sockets enough to be able to describe the reality of what happened. The Pats TE/WR/Wahtever is coming across acting like he is running a crossing route, looks directly at our db, changes his path to cut him off sticking his leg out in the process, but because he magically gets out of the way before blowing him up it is not a penalty? Say the DB doesn't try to protect himself by avoiding the contact and gets injured doing so, because the c*nt clearly threw his leg out there, would that have warranted a flag then? Imo, this is just another example of how the Patriots are held to a separate standard apart from the one the rest of the league is held to. 

 

I noticed that. He is clearly a Pats fan and he seemed to think they could do no wrong.

 

Onto the non-call, it looked to me he stuck his foot out trying to trip up the defender and the Bills player had to maneuver to not get hit or trip, in doing that he still fell but didn't get contacted by the Pats player.

 

Which is why they say it was a non call. But it still should have been called IMO, but anyway......

Edited September 30, 2019 by Patrick_Duffy

[Not at the table Karlos]

Wallace should have plowed into him. But then it prob would have been DPI

[PetermansRedemption]

I think the only reason it wasn’t called is because the Bills defender avoided the contact. Complete BS. They were talking about it on WGR this morning. It leaves the defender with two options. Option one go around the obvious pick and save injury but your man gets open and you don’t get a flag. Option two nail the pick play, risk injury, go down, and you still probably don’t get the flag because... Patriots. 

[Thunderstruck]

Clearly OPI. The guy wasn't running a route. He went out of his way to move into the path of the DB and then moved back to dodge him / avoid contact at the last second. Belichik knows that most DBs will try to avoid that contact. Our DB would have been better off plowing into him. It wouldn't have been called our way at first, but we probably would have won the challenge at least.

[PetermansRedemption]

Just now, Thunderstruck said:

Clearly OPI. The guy wasn't running a route. He went out of his way to move into the path of the DB and then moved back to dodge him / avoid contact at the last second. Belichik knows that most DBs will try to avoid that contact. Our DB would have been better off plowing into him. It wouldn't have been called our way at first, but we probably would have won the challenge at least.

He even went out of his way to stick his foot out. If that isn’t obvious I don’t know what is. 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

3 minutes ago, Not at the table Karlos said:

Wallace should have plowed into him. But then it prob would have been DPI

 

I think that was the problem, Wallace instinctively tried to avoid him and by doing so there was no contact.  Hard to call a penalty when no contact.  If he had tripped completely over  him, likely would have got the call.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Ed_Formerly_of_Roch

[whatdrought]

Wallace needs to smack into him on that play, make it obvious. The fact that they didn't call it on review is BS. 

[Haslett_Stomp]

As I tell my Pats* bride every week, there is a reason everyone outside of New England hates the Patriots*

[Capco]

I guess the coaches need to coach this kind of thing?  Idk about you, but my natural reaction would be to avoid the leg.  It would take a forced effort to let myself trip.

 

I mean, what a ridiculous thing to have to be coached on just to be on a level playing field with the Patriots.... wtf

[Sandhill Mike]

1 minute ago, Not at the table Karlos said:

Wallace should have plowed into him. But then it prob would have been DPI

 

That's what I thought when watching it.  The Pats decoy even made like he was going to initiate contact before pulling back... THEN he stuck the leg out.  If Levi had run into him, somehow it would have been the Bills fault and Gordon's catch and run would have counted anyway.

 

I would think that sticking your leg out like that would be unsportsmanlike, even if you whiffed.

[H2o]

2 minutes ago, whatdrought said:

Wallace needs to smack into him on that play, make it obvious. The fact that they didn't call it on review is BS. 

Exactly. YOU SEE THE PATRIOTS PLAYER LOOK DIRECTLY AT HIM AND CHANGE HIS PATH TO GET INTO HIS WAY. 

[Mr. WEO]

Can't call a "rub" with no contact.  Just ask Kraft...

[BuffaloRebound]

How is the flag not thrown real time?  That’s the bigger question.  It took a slow motion replay to see that there wasn’t contact.  Real time you’d think that you have to throw a flag there.  

[Mr. WEO]

1 minute ago, BuffaloRebound said:

How is the flag not thrown real time?  That’s the bigger question.  It took a slow motion replay to see that there wasn’t contact.  Real time you’d think that you have to throw a flag there.  

 

 

Not for the ref standing there...

 

Look, if a DB throws a "boo!" and waves his hands as he is closing in on a WR and the WR changes his route or falls down or whatever, it's not a penalty either.  If a Bills TE had done this move, everyone would be applauding his effective and legal fake out.

[Mark80]

Uhhh, you can't have pass interference without touching the guy.  It's pretty simple.  As others stated, he should have ran into him.  He didn't.  So no PI.  End of story, unfortunately. 

[BuffaloBillies]

Here's a zoomed in screenshot.

Not only stopped in his tracks, leaned in, and pushed that left leg out, but he's also looking RIGHT at him.

 

 

 

*intent is 9/10 of the law

Edited September 30, 2019 by BuffaloBillies

[Jobot]

It's a penalty.  The Patriots are notorious for this play and always seem to get away with it.  It's bad for the game and is one of the aspects that makes the game 'unwatchable' sometimes.  Along with reviews, bad calls, tv timeouts, awful game flow.

[BuffaloRebound]

Does the rule state physical contact or impede?  

4 minutes ago, Mark80 said:

Uhhh, you can't have pass interference without touching the guy.  It's pretty simple.  As others stated, he should have ran into him.  He didn't.  So no PI.  End of story, unfortunately. 

 

You could argue the Pats player was so blatant that he met the definition of ‘impede’ without actually making physical contact.  

[Matt_In_NH]

is there a one yard from line of scrimmage is allowable element?   He looks to be 1.5 yards past though.....he clearly intended on interfering.   But all teams do these, the Pats probably the most.  Other teams like the Bills should probably do more of them.   Anyone who has been paying attention to the challenges for PI knew there was 0 chance it was getting overturned.  Fouts actually said it was a good challenge, but I completely disagreed, it was just a wasted timeout is all it was.  A timeout that might have been useful down at the goal line when they had to take a delay of game.

Edited September 30, 2019 by mattynh

[Bray Wyatt]

2 minutes ago, BuffaloRebound said:

Does the rule state physical contact or impede?  

 

You could argue the Pats player was so blatant that he met the definition of ‘impede’ without actually making physical contact.  

 

It is pass interference by either team when any act by a player more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage significantly hinders an eligible player’s opportunity to catch the ball.

 

https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/nfl-video-rulebook/offensive-pass-interference/

[Ta111]

12 minutes ago, Mark80 said:

Uhhh, you can't have pass interference without touching the guy.  It's pretty simple.  As others stated, he should have ran into him.  He didn't.  So no PI.  End of story, unfortunately. 

Wrong. Any act that hinders the defender. There doesn’t need to be contact.

[BuffaloRebound]

2 minutes ago, Bray Wyatt said:

 

It is pass interference by either team when any act by a player more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage significantly hinders an eligible player’s opportunity to catch the ball.

 

https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/nfl-video-rulebook/offensive-pass-interference/

 

Thanks.  He’s more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage and definitely looks like he significantly hinders.  

[Shaw66]

You guys can argue about this all day if you want, and I haven't seen a lot of replays, but I think it's simple:  

 

1.  It was offensive pass interference.

 

2.  The officials on the field missed it.  

 

And this is the important part:

 

3.  On review, they are going to overturn calls that (a) are obvious (this was) and (b) actually affected the reception.   Wallace was so far behind Gordon before the pick that I think the review official decided that if there'd been no interference Gordon would have caught it anyway.   Yes, maybe Wallace might have made a quick tackle and saved a big gain, but he wasn't ever going in position to break up the pass.  

 

They haven't exactly said that's how the reviews work, but they have said over and over that the purpose of the rule is to avoid unfair result of an obviously missed call, as happened to the Saints in the playoffs.  In other words, it's not enough that the interference was obvious; it also had to affect the catch.  

[Mark80]

11 minutes ago, BuffaloRebound said:

Does the rule state physical contact or impede?  

 

You could argue the Pats player was so blatant that he met the definition of ‘impede’ without actually making physical contact.  

 

The definition requires contact if you look at the rule book.  Specifically it says " Cutting off the path of an opponent by making contact with him, without playing the ball; "  Section 5, Article 2, Part e.  It would be a very broad interpretation of the rules to extend that beyond what is specifically stated for this situation as you would have to think they added "making contact" in there deliberately as opposed to "significantly hinders" which is used elsewhere.  When you interpret legal documents, which a rule book basically is, that is how you do it, with intent in mind and here you have to assume they did what they did on purpose.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Mark80

[NoSaint]

39 minutes ago, H2o said:

I don't have a link to the video or anything, but imo it was obvious as they get. Fouts couldn't get the Patriots' balls out of his eye sockets enough to be able to describe the reality of what happened. The Pats TE/WR/Wahtever is coming across acting like he is running a crossing route, looks directly at our db, changes his path to cut him off sticking his leg out in the process, but because he magically gets out of the way before blowing him up it is not a penalty? Say the DB doesn't try to protect himself by avoiding the contact and gets injured doing so, because the c*nt clearly threw his leg out there, would that have warranted a flag then? Imo, this is just another example of how the Patriots are held to a separate standard apart from the one the rest of the league is held to. 

 

Contact is a key element of the penalty it seems. If a DB ran in front of a receiver and the receiver tripped trying to avoid him we wouldn’t expect a flag without contact to bring a more common but relatively analogous situation to think about 

[Bray Wyatt]

1 minute ago, NoSaint said:

 

Contact is a key element of the penalty it seems. If a DB ran in front of a receiver and the receiver tripped trying to avoid him we wouldn’t expect a flag without contact to bring a more common but relatively analogous situation to think about 

 

Its not

[NoSaint]

38 minutes ago, Patrick_Duffy said:

 

I noticed that. He is clearly a Pats fan and he seemed to think they could do no wrong.

 

Onto the non-call, it looked to me he stuck his foot out trying to trip up the defender and the Bills player had to maneuver to not get hit or trip, in doing that he still fell but didn't get contacted by the Pats player.

 

Which is why they say it was a non call. But it still should have been called IMO, but anyway......

 

Unless someone posts the rule pointing contrary it’s hard to say you think it should’ve been called. Sure you might think the rule should be changed but the refs should call the rule as on the books. 

 

I wont pretend to know the letter of it but the logic they presented made sense and seems consistent 

[Freddie's Dead]

Just another case of Cheats being Cheats.  The picker moved back toward his own LOS and changed direction to get in his way.  But the chickenshit refs had a perfect out.  It was a good challenge by McD even though the NFL ratified the Cheats.  Just another example showing how the NFL fixed this game so the Cheats would win.

[GunnerBill]

3 minutes ago, Mark80 said:

 

The definition requires contact if you look at the rule book.  Specifically it says " Cutting off the path of an opponent by making contact with him, without playing the ball; "  Section 5, Article 2, Part e.  It would be a very broad interpretation of the rules to extend that beyond what is specifically stated for this situation as you would have to think they added "making contact" in there deliberately as opposed to "impede" which is used elsewhere.

 

Yep. This. I looked it up last night. 

[Mark80]

7 minutes ago, Ta111 said:

Wrong. Any act that hinders the defender. There doesn’t need to be contact.

 

See my last post.  I love it so much when people annoying and with certainty try to tell people they are wrong on something and they are the ones who are, in fact, wrong.  It makes my day.  The rule book clearly says make contact for this situation.  Go back to recess, son.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Mark80

[Ta111]

1 minute ago, NoSaint said:

 

Contact is a key element of the penalty it seems. If a DB ran in front of a receiver and the receiver tripped trying to avoid him we wouldn’t expect a flag without contact to bring a more common but relatively analogous situation to think about 

That may be what the officials yesterday were looked at but they would be incorrect. If you stop your route right in front of the defender, causing the defender to go around, it is PI. Otherwise you are telling DB’s to make sure if a receiver stops immediately in front of you to make sure you contact him to get the call. That certainly isn’t the point tent of the rule.

[C.Biscuit97]

Eh, he tried to avoid him and barely made any contact.  If the situations was reversed, I’d be furious if that took away a big play.  That the whole point of those routes.  There are way better examples of pick plays to get mad about than that one.  

 

We need to stop trying to blame the refs. We just need to get better. 

[NoSaint]

12 minutes ago, Bray Wyatt said:

 

It is pass interference by either team when any act by a player more than one yard beyond the line of scrimmage significantly hinders an eligible player’s opportunity to catch the ball.

 

https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/nfl-video-rulebook/offensive-pass-interference/

 

Unfortunately, your link is a summary not the rule. From the linked rule there: 

 

1. Cutting off the path of an opponent by making contact with him, without playing the ball;

[dave mcbride]

36 minutes ago, Bills2ref said:

He even went out of his way to stick his foot out. If that isn’t obvious I don’t know what is. 

That's not what happened, and it's pretty clear on the replay. 

 

My question is, can you ever call OPI if the ostensibly offending receiver doesn't actually touch the defender? It certainly looked to me like they never actually contacted each other even though the Pats player got in his way. The Bills defender appeared to trip over himself as he tried to get around the receiver. 

[Alphadawg7]

I agree it was a penalty, had it been called during live action.  But its also a very difficult call to make in live action with the lack of actual contact with the trailing DB.  Which also makes it a difficult call to reverse on a review, and lets remember this is the first year even being able to challenge something like that. 

 

For me, this wasn't that big of a deal as this is a total judgement call and the lack of contact didn't help the matter.  There were other plays where I felt were bigger misses by the refs than this one.  

[dave mcbride]

1 minute ago, Alphadawg7 said:

I agree it was a penalty, had it been called during live action.  But its also a very difficult call to make in live action with the lack of actual contact with the trailing DB.  Which also makes it a difficult call to reverse on a review, and lets remember this is the first year even being able to challenge something like that. 

 

For me, this wasn't that big of a deal as this is a total judgement call and the lack of contact didn't help the matter.  There were other plays where I felt were bigger misses by the refs than this one.  

I don't think you can call it if there's no contact. That's just me, though. I don't know the rule in any depth.

Edited September 30, 2019 by dave mcbride

[GG]

3 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

That's not what happened, and it's pretty clear on the replay. 

 

My question is, can you ever call OPI if the ostensibly offending receiver doesn't actually touch the defender? It certainly looked to me like they never actually contacted each other even though the Pats player got in his way. The Bills defender appeared to trip over himself as he tried to get around the receiver. 

 

That's the one play I would like to see an All 22 review, because it looked like the left foot contacted the Bills player

[Bray Wyatt]

3 minutes ago, NoSaint said:

 

Unfortunately, your link is a summary not the rule. From the linked rule there: 

 

1. Cutting off the path of an opponent by making contact with him, without playing the ball;

 

While that gives an example it also says  this before: Acts that are pass interference include, but are not limited to:

 

 

[jrober38]

45 minutes ago, Not at the table Karlos said:

Wallace should have plowed into him. But then it prob would have been DPI

 

Agreed.

 

Seems as though the play there is to run right into the offensive player if you want to get the call.

 

The tight end is looking at our CB the moment the ball is snapped. Never once does he look back at the QB. It's a pick the whole way.