Fair Catch Called... Pushed into the Return Man... Then a Change of Posession?

[hitmandm]

Terrible rule! But it won't change unless it happened to the Patriots of course.

haha so funny...so true

[Bubble Screen]

****ing right it decided the outcome of the game. We SHOULD be 3-2 and I am sticking to it.

Nope. If I remember correctly, that play happened with 9 or 10 minutes to play in the game. Not to mention, we still had the lead at the time. Could have held them to a FG. Better yet, we still had plenty of time to drive for a FG or TD. It didn't cost us the game. Good teams overcome stuff like that. FWIW, it is a terrible rule. And that will definitely be changed.

[mcarey032]

This is one of the most terrible and obscure rules ever come up with. I don't know how you can hit a man into the returner when he has signaled fair catch and then get the result of that play. What a joke! This is even worse than the tuck rule.

[DButz65]

it is a terrible rule. And that will definitely be changed.

Yea it should already read ..... if a kick off coverage man is being engaged/blocked by a returning team player... he can not push the blocker into the returner that calls for a FAIR CATCH, or something like that.

Yes that play sucked today, and it sucked the wind out of our sails for the most part, but technically it was the correct call. I don't blame that one play on the loss though, but something needs to change and change fast. I think Collins can make quicker decisions and is smarter when it comes to that. We don't throw down field very often, we don't need a gunslinger in this offense. Every time Campbell starts to scramble he does the same thing, steps up and tries to find his check down receiver, it looks like he cant find him half the time.

[Eparadox]

So, on the flip side, what makes it illegal for a blocker on the receiving team to purposefully block a player on the kicking team into the returner before he catches the ball? Shouldn't this result in interference on the return, and a 15 yard penalty?

[THE HAMMER'IN HOG]

Nope. If I remember correctly, that play happened with 9 or 10 minutes to play in the game. Not to mention, we still had the lead at the time. Could have held them to a FG. Better yet, we still had plenty of time to drive for a FG or TD. It didn't cost us the game. Good teams overcome stuff like that. FWIW, it is a terrible rule. And that will definitely be changed.

What I find ironic is the fact that JC could not drive the ball down field for a TD like he did against the Giants, and the Lions, what was any different in the Panther game?

Answer, JC was not allotted his usual garbage time stat padding drive against a prevent defense that knows the victory is pretty much locked. To bad we were not down by 2 scores we could have another week of how JC is really coming around, and the Panthers were not in a prevent, and how his numbers are amongst the league leaders after he pads his stats with a meaningless 80 yds, 8 completions and a TD, funny that didn't happen this week!

JC outplayed by an absolute horrible QB in Delhomme!

[MartinC]

What I find ironic is the fact that JC could not drive the ball down field for a TD like he did against the Giants' date=' and the Lions, what was any different in the Panther game?

Answer, JC was not allotted his usual garbage time stat padding drive against a prevent defense that knows the victory is pretty much locked. To bad we were not down by 2 scores we could have another week of how JC is really coming around, and the Panthers were not in a prevent, and how his numbers are amongst the league leaders after he pads his stats with a meaningless 80 yds, 8 completions and a TD, funny that didn't happen this week!

JC outplayed by an absolute horrible QB in Delhomme![/quote']

How many threads are there on the front page about how horrible JC is and how it is that all our problems are due to him? I'm sure you have posted in most of them. Is it not possible to have ANY discussion related to the Redskins without it turning into a JC or QB thread?

[Godfather151981]

People want to argue that we blew a 15 pt. lead, which technically we did. But Carolina getting the ball on that play was a HUGE part of blowing that lead. How can the defense be blamed for "blowing the lead" when Carolina had the ball in the red zone when they had no business doing so?

Furthermore, the original explanation that Walt Coleman gave the Redskins the ball. Then suddenly the refs "huddle up" and discuss it; as we know, the call was magically reversed. It kind of reminded me of how the refs "huddled up" and "discussed" the Santana Moss facemask call against the Lions, which resulted in the flag getting picked up. It also seemed to me that John Fox was getting in the officials' face a bit during that whole exchange, which seemed to result in the zebra conference. The only courtesy that Jim Zorn seemed to get was the ref telling him that it was a "challengable play." I don't necessarily blame Fox, and in fact I wish Zorn would have totally blown a gasket on the ref, but that whole set of circumstances was really bizzare. Sure good teams overcome that kind of thing and so forth, but over the course of the last 15 years how many questionable or controversial calls have gone in the Redskins' favor?

[Thiebear]

The play sucked:

Blocking a player into the receiver is crap...

But that wasn't the problem.

[Fergasun]

In the Sunday Night Football game the Titans made a similar play against the Colts, causing the punt to be muffed. I agree the rulebook is not clear that pushing a blocker into the receiver is a gray area.

[RocketCitySkins]

In the Sunday Night Football game the Titans made a similar play against the Colts, causing the punt to be muffed. I agree the rulebook is not clear that pushing a blocker into the receiver is a gray area.

I noticed that. But did you also notice that the next time the Titans were back to punt, the kick returner was the only one within 10 yards of the ball?

Which is also not fair because it gives a huge advantage to the kicking team for the returner to have no help to recover the ball if he fumbles it on his own.

[hogwild64]

it did happen again. in the colts game last night.

[laxpck]

I went to the game.

That play didnt cost us.

At one point our offensive (OFFENSIVE IS RIGHT) line consisted of:

Was Batiste, Rhineheart, Rabach, Mike Williams and Heyer

Ummm this is the NFL, you can only hide your lack of depth SO long.

Peppers is now a hero again in Charlotte because our O line sucks so bad.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

it did happen again. in the colts game last night.

That was insane. I'm sure I'd seen that type of play before but it's a rarity.

And then it happened twice on one day.

[Godfather151981]

I went to the game.

That play didnt cost us.

At one point our offensive (OFFENSIVE IS RIGHT) line consisted of:

Was Batiste, Rhineheart, Rabach, Mike Williams and Heyer

Ummm this is the NFL, you can only hide your lack of depth SO long.

Peppers is now a hero again in Charlotte because our O line sucks so bad.

Sorry, I have to disagree...that play did cost us the game. Everyone wants to point out that the Redskins' two TD's came off of short fields thanks to turnovers. Carolina's first TD was after a long kickoff return (short field). And their second TD was the result of them getting the ball on that play. Sure the defense could have stopped them from getting in, but when the field is so short that can be challenging. Nevertheless, if not for that play going down as it did, the Redskins have the ball. If the game to that point was any indication, they probably wouldn't have driven down the field for a TD. But again, if the game to that point is any indication, what about Carolina's offense would have said that they would have scored on the Redskins' defense? And as I said before, the whole circumstance with the ref telling Zorn that it was a challengable play was really bizzare.

Honestly, I wish Zorn had pulled a John Harbaugh and gotten flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, because at the very least that would have told the team that he isn't going to just stand by and accept getting screwed. Whether or not he has that kind of fire in him is another story, but it would have been nice to see. Unfortunately, these officiating crews have very short memories. The Ravens complained vehemently last week about roughing the passer, and they got flagged several times for ticky-tack penalties yesterday. With as many times as the Skins have been screwed over the past 15 years by refs compared to the number of times our coaches have gone off on them, one would think that we'd get one in our favor from time to time. If people want to call me out for blaming the refs and not holding the team accountable, that's fine. All I'm saying is that regardless of the offensive line or anything else, the Redskins were in a position to win that game yesterday. Again, for all I know Campbell would have fumbled or been picked off, and Carolina would have scored anyways. But the point is that we'll never know.

[TheTotalPackage]

I actually understand the rule. I didn't at the time.

Enough with the excuses and bickering at the refs and/or how the rules are written. They were there long before yesterday and we should know this just like mcnabb should know games can end in a tie.

That is on westbrook for not getting out of the way, staying engaged and letting his punk azz get blocked into his own man and into the ball. Its on ARE for not making his teammates aware that it was short and he was fair catching it, and its on the special teams coaches for not having some sort of system in place in the event this scenario happened. Its on jim zorn for not ensuring that his special teams coach had a system in place for every conceivable scenario and its on jim zorn for having an incompetent replay advisor who told him to challenge the call, and its on jim zorn for even thinking about wasting a challenge on a gamble and not just using them when the outcome is a sure thing. It is on vinny cerrato for puting such inept players on the roster who would allow themselves to be blocked into the punt, muffing the punt, etc and its on dan snyder for being responsible for fielding the entire lot of front office employees, incompetent coaching staff, inexperienced coach inferior and unintelligent player personnell on the playing field, leading this organization to the shambles it has become.

[MattFancy]

It was the right call, but a horrible rule. But, it shouldn't have come down to that. We were up 17-2 midway through the 3rd quarter. We let them score 18 straight points. That's not the refs fault. We couldn't move the ball on offense at all and our defense was put in a tough spot after the fumble since the Panthers didn't have far to go.

[SkinsManNJ]

BULL****! I have NEVER seen such HORRIBLE calls in a game than this one today. How the **** can that not be a penalty? Also, how did the call get overturned to begin with? Shouldn't THEY have had to challenge the ORIGINAL call?:chair::chair::chair:

Carolina did challenge it after the ref said it was our ball. Fox asked the ref are you sure it didn't hit the reciever the 10 secs later the ref changed his mind and theb we had to do a real challenge. That's what really happened. Since when do coaches win challenges without throwing the red flag. Complete BS.

[BornToHail]

Whatever you want to call it, that play decided the game.

The game was decided by a littany of terrible strategic decisions by the Redskins- that was just one quirky event.

[BornToHail]

I actually understand the rule. I didn't at the time.

Enough with the excuses and bickering at the refs and/or how the rules are written. They were there long before yesterday and we should know this just like mcnabb should know games can end in a tie.

That is on westbrook for not getting out of the way, staying engaged and letting his punk azz get blocked into his own man and into the ball. Its on ARE for not making his teammates aware that it was short and he was fair catching it, and its on the special teams coaches for not having some sort of system in place in the event this scenario happened. Its on jim zorn for not ensuring that his special teams coach had a system in place for every conceivable scenario and its on jim zorn for having an incompetent replay advisor who told him to challenge the call, and its on jim zorn for even thinking about wasting a challenge on a gamble and not just using them when the outcome is a sure thing. It is on vinny cerrato for puting such inept players on the roster who would allow themselves to be blocked into the punt, muffing the punt, etc and its on dan snyder for being responsible for fielding the entire lot of front office employees, incompetent coaching staff, inexperienced coach inferior and unintelligent player personnell on the playing field, leading this organization to the shambles it has become.

Sadly...+1

[DCsportsfan53]

Bottom line, it was the right call and the rule has been the same for a long time. That's why, as a blocker on Special Teams, it's your job not to get to close to your return man so you can't get blocked into him. Poor play by Westbrook not knowing where he was on the field. Not that any of it matters when the bottom line is we're a ****ty football team.

[RocketCitySkins]

While I don't think that play cost us the game, it sure didn't help. I hope the rule is changed during the next off-season.

[Skinz248]

Carolina did challenge it after the ref said it was our ball. Fox asked the ref are you sure it didn't hit the reciever the 10 secs later the ref changed his mind and theb we had to do a real challenge. That's what really happened. Since when do coaches win challenges without throwing the red flag. Complete BS.

Such BS.... If he challenged it we should have never had to give up a TO. And we would be able to stop the clock at the end of the game.

[81artmonk]

Randel El is supposed to have some kind of signal that the kick is short and for all the blockers to get away. At least that's what all the teams I've played on have had.

Edit: Other than the fair catch signal. Usually it's just the return man yelling "Get away! Get away!" or "Short! Short!".

This is probably true, but if you are engaged in blocking your man how likely is it that you are gonna be able to move out of the way.

Bottom line is, it's a lucky play for the Panthers and a stupid ass rule put into affect by the NFL.

I mean seriously, if it is illegal to interfere with the receiver during a fair catch, how come other means of interfering is considered legal?? I could see if it was inadvertant, but given it was done intensionally, I don't see how the NFL can view that as legal??

[nebster21]

Penalties can not be called on plays that are reviewed. It sucks but true