Muck FcDisney wrote:COMPLETED OR INTERCEPTED PASS
Article 3 Completed or Intercepted Pass. A player who makes a catch may advance the ball. A forward
pass is complete (by the offense) or intercepted (by the defense) if a player, who is inbounds:
(a) secures control of the ball in his hands or arms prior to the ball touching the ground; and
(b) touches the ground inbounds with both feet or with any part of his body other than his hands; and
(c) maintains control of the ball long enough, after (a) and (b) have been fulfilled, to enable him to
perform any act common to the game (i.e., maintaining control long enough to pitch it, pass it,
advance with it, or avoid or ward off an opponent, etc.).
Note 1: It is not necessary that he commit such an act, provided that he maintains control of the ball long
enough to do so.
Note 2: If a player has control of the ball, a slight movement of the ball will not be considered a loss of
possession. He must lose control of the ball in order to rule that there has been a loss of possession.
If the player loses the ball while simultaneously touching both feet or any part of his body other than his hands
to the ground, or if there is any doubt that the acts were simultaneous, it is not a catch.
Item 1: Player Going to the Ground. If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or
without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball throughout the process of contacting
the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches
the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching
the ground, the pass is complete.
I don't know what else to tell you, man. :dunno
So him lunging toward the goal line after catching it and maintaining possession in both hands enough to perform a lunge is not advancement?
In terms of a, b, and c, he caught the ball. If a, b, and c don't count with regards to "going to the ground," what constitutes the beginning of "going to the ground?" By those standards, technically a completed* pass can never result in a fumble so long as the receiver loses control while "going to the ground."
* would be ruled incomplete.
A catch is maintaining control of the ball with no part of the player touching out of bounds before or during the catch He controlled it with the ball over the goal line. The play was dead by the time he lost possession of the ball. I don't care whatever caveats the NFL does to justify their bullshit calls and overturns. Again, they don't know what a catch is.
If the hook and lateral I showed above was a catch and a lateral, so is the Steelers' TD. Otherwise a hook and lateral isn't a lateral but a deflection.