Last week, the NFL’s in-house rules analyst was candid in acknowledging subpar decision making by officials. This week, not.
Appearing (too briefly) on NFL Network’s GameDay Morning, Walt Anderson provided a short explanation of the critical non-call of intentional grounding from Thursday night’s Steelers-Browns game.
In a nutshell, that call most likely determined the outcome of the game. If it had been made, Cleveland would have faced fourth and 15 from the Pittsburgh 38. If Cleveland had failed to convert, it would have been over for the Browns.
Anderson defended the call, in the limited window he had to do so.
“Number 68 for Cleveland, Michael Dunn, he reported as eligible,” Anderson said, as video of the play was displayed. “So he’s an eligible receiver. And so when Jameis Winston dropped back and he goes to throw the ball, there’s really two reasons why it’s not intentional grounding. Number one is because Michael Dunn is in the area. Even though he’s wearing number 68 it’s as if he’s wearing 88. And you can see here that Winston starts his throwing motion and he’s hit by the defender. So by rule that significantly affects this throw. So for those two reasons, it’s not intentional grounding — but it was an illegal touching of the pass.”
Here’s the problem with devoting far too little time to a topic far more important to the integrity of the overall game than 99.9 percent of the other stuff that makes it into the four-hour pregame show. Anderson, given the sliver of real estate he receives, was forced to provide a bare-bones summary that was disconnected from the language of the rule itself.
Maybe they want it that way. Short and sweet and circle the wagons and move on. But it’s not very persuasive.
First, the argument that Dunn was “in the area” means nothing. “In the area” isn’t, you know, in the rule. The rule states that the throw must be made in the direction and land in the vicinity of an eligible receiver. The throw was not made in Dunn’s direction. It arguably landed in his vicinity, but it definitely wasn’t thrown in his direction.
Second, Anderson’s explanation of the impact of linebacker Patrick Queen’s hit on Winston turns the exception to the grounding rule upside down. Anderson argues that, because Queen hit Winston after he started his throwing motion, “by rule that significantly affects his throw.” That’s not the rule. Under the rule, a hit doesn’t automatically affect the throw significantly. The hit, as explained in the rule, must significantly affect the throw. Here, it arguably did not.
The best argument for a non-grounding call was that Winston originally was throwing in the direction of Dunn but the hit significantly affected the throw, causing it not to be thrown in his direction. However, framing it that way makes it more obvious that common sense should have prevailed here, with a flag being dropped.
Winston wasn’t intending to throw the ball to an offensive lineman who was nearly as far behind the line as Winston was. Winston was trying to avoid a loss of yardage once he saw Queen break free untouched. We know it when we see it; Winston rushed to get rid of the ball before he got sacked.
This wasn’t a quarterback lining up a throw and getting hit from behind unsuspectingly and having the ball land in an area where no one was. This was a quarterback having an oh shit moment as he faced a certain sack, so he threw the ball and hoped for the best.
