Does a woodchuck chuck wood?

Let’s just cut to the chase here…Calvin Johnson and the Lions got it “prison style.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming the officials; they enforced the letter of the rule, which is exactly what they need to do. But it is the spirit of the rule that is screwed up here; this is what happens when you have a rules committee that is so afraid of getting things “right” they’ve defined “right” into “wrong.”

Calvin Johnson climbed over Chicago Bears defender Zack Bowman and snagged the ball with two hands at the highest point he could grab it. He controlled it in the end zone. He got his BOTH his feet down. He palmed the ball with one hand as he came down to the ground, keeping it snug and secure as his backside hit. At no point did he not CLEARLY have control of the ball.

Side judge Mike Weatherford, who was standing RIGHT THERE, ruled the play a touchdown. Other officials raced in and disagreed. After a lengthy video review, referee Gene Steratore delivered the bad news.  He deemed the pass incomplete. The ruling baffled all who watched the replay.  Steratore explained: “The ruling is that in order for the catch to be completed he has got to maintain possession of the ball throughout the entire process of the catch.” Leave it to the NFL to inject legalese-type bullshit into the simple act of catching a goddamn ball.

So, let me make sure I have this straight…the receiver did not complete the catch in the process of the catch? What’s worse is that as the rule currently reads, overturning the touchdown call was correct and while it was technically defensible, the rule itself is absurd, flying in the face of common sense and competitive fairness. You know it’s bad when I agree with an idiot like Mitch Albom.

“That was a touchdown. You can show me the rulebook. You can cite the referees. You can stand me in front of (Lions coach) Jim Schwartz even as he defends the call that killed his team. I don’t care. By any definition that makes sense, by any memory of any person who has ever played the game of football in their backyards, on their local fields, in high school, in college, anywhere — that was a touchdown.”

Of course, what everybody defending this rule forgets is that a runner entering the endzone needs only to break the plane of the goal line, but receivers apparently are required not only to comedown in bounds in both feet with full possession of the ball, they then must place the ball in a box along with a certified copies of their birth certificate and their previous seven years worth of tax returns and mail it to Roger Goodell. They will be notified in four to six weeks of the validity of the “touchdown.”

Sadder still is that Johnson and the Lions aren’t the first to get screwed by this rule, and they won’t be the last. The so-called “Going to the Ground” is just another silly rule the NFL believes maintains “fairness,” like the rule that says when Tom Brady fumbles it isn’t a fumble. Maybe that’s why I’m starting to agree with this guy (seriously not safe for work).