Let me show you how the refs completely botched the spotting of the ball after Dak's slide

[khiladi]

It’s strange, because he is trailing with the other ref, but they BOTH are trailing so far behind the play.

 

[OGCowboy]

To me this whole conversation is laughable....especially people that actually think there was some great miracle pass and catch going to happen in last one second of a game that this team had stunk up like roadkill for the previous 59min and 59sec....oh my if they could’ve ran just one more play....
lol SMH

 

[khiladi]

Nah, I disagree.

A player can’t arbitrarily spot the ball himself. In the Rams example, they got away with it but that oversight doesn’t suddenly make it optional.

That’s just fundamental.

To your other point that they don’t have to hand the ball over and that the ref only needs to touch it, yeah, I agree with you.

Good point about the arbitrary setting of the ball…

 

[ghosttown cowboy]

We have to go back to the Cowboys' last brutal playoff defeat, in 2019 against the Rams.

In that game, the Rams were driving just before halftime to try and secure a long field goal attempt for a kicker some of you may have heard of, named Greg Zuerlein.

With no timeouts left, Jared Goff completes a pass across the middle to Robert Woods, who is tackled and immediately spots the ball himself. The center grabs the ball and the offense gets in position to snap it. At no point does anyone hand the ball to the referee. In fact, if you blink, you may have missed the referee completely. He zooms into the screen momentarily, lightly taps the top of the football, then scurries out of the way so the Rams can snap the ball and clock it.

Watch:

Contrary to what Tony Romo would like you to believe, the referee does not need to be physically handed the football, they simply need to touch it. Biadasz had the ball in hand, on the turf, with four seconds left on the clock. A competent referee simply needed to run to the line (but not into the quarterback), touch the football, and then get out of the way, allowing it to be snapped and clocked with about one second to spare.

A few things:

1. This is not the reason the Cowboys lost.

2. Asking Dak to run, slide, and clock the ball was still a dumb, and far too risky, play call.

3. This is not a conspiracy against the Cowboys; it's incompetent officiating.

4. Regardless of points 1, 2 & 3, the fact of the matter is the Cowboys absolutely should have gotten the opportunity to run one more play from the 24-yard-line.

Dak started his slide at the 27, the ball should have been moved back there instead of being spotted at the 24...The ref did us a favor

 

[SteveTheCowboy]

To me this whole conversation is laughable....especially people that actually think there was some great miracle pass and catch going to happen in last one second of a game that this team had stunk up like roadkill for the previous 59min and 59sec....oh my if they could’ve ran just one more play....
lol SMH

Dude...championships were made one ONE play.

You didn;t see SF/Dwight Clark bust our AXX on one play?

Roger's Hail Mary on ONE PLAY?

You are an idiot sorry no offense intended.

 

[SteveTheCowboy]

Nah, I disagree.

A player can’t arbitrarily spot the ball himself. In the Rams example, they got away with it but that oversight doesn’t suddenly make it optional.

That’s just fundamental.

To your other point that they don’t have to hand the ball over and that the ref only needs to touch it, yeah, I agree with you.

A player cant arbitrary spot the ball which OF COURSE means the ref must AUTOMATICALLY spot it somewhere else just because.

People...god what the f....

 

[OGCowboy]

Dude...championships were made one ONE play.

You didn;t see SF/Dwight Clark bust our AXX on one play?

Roger's Hail Mary on ONE PLAY?

You are an idiot sorry no offense intended.

Dude....the plays you referenced were not teams that played like Cisco Jr College for previous 59:59 of the game. Also the players you mentioned are HOF players....an issue that NONE of the players involved in that clown show yesterday will have to be concerned about
You are a gumflapper sir, sorry no offense intended.

 

[SteveTheCowboy]

Dude....the plays you referenced were not teams that played like Cisco Jr College for previous 59:59 of the game. Also the players you mentioned are HOF players....an issue that NONE of the players involved in that clown show yesterday will have to be concerned about
You are a gumflapper sir, sorry no offense intended.

I can only go by what you said. Don;t blame me if you can't speak your thoughts correctly.

ONE play. It's all you need. On play makes the game. ONE play makes a champion. You said one play is worthless.

Even suckazz teams have escaped with one last play.

"gumflapper"....wow....good work!

 

[CalPolyTechnique]

A player cant arbitrary spot the ball which OF COURSE means the ref must AUTOMATICALLY spot it somewhere else just because.

People...god what the f....

Lol, what are you talking about? Are you supporting my point?

 

[OmerV]

We have to go back to the Cowboys' last brutal playoff defeat, in 2019 against the Rams.

In that game, the Rams were driving just before halftime to try and secure a long field goal attempt for a kicker some of you may have heard of, named Greg Zuerlein.

With no timeouts left, Jared Goff completes a pass across the middle to Robert Woods, who is tackled and immediately spots the ball himself. The center grabs the ball and the offense gets in position to snap it. At no point does anyone hand the ball to the referee. In fact, if you blink, you may have missed the referee completely. He zooms into the screen momentarily, lightly taps the top of the football, then scurries out of the way so the Rams can snap the ball and clock it.

Watch:

Contrary to what Tony Romo would like you to believe, the referee does not need to be physically handed the football, they simply need to touch it. Biadasz had the ball in hand, on the turf, with four seconds left on the clock. A competent referee simply needed to run to the line (but not into the quarterback), touch the football, and then get out of the way, allowing it to be snapped and clocked with about one second to spare.

A few things:

1. This is not the reason the Cowboys lost.

2. Asking Dak to run, slide, and clock the ball was still a dumb, and far too risky, play call.

3. This is not a conspiracy against the Cowboys; it's incompetent officiating.

4. Regardless of points 1, 2 & 3, the fact of the matter is the Cowboys absolutely should have gotten the opportunity to run one more play from the 24-yard-line.

The ref does have to decide on the spot though, and if he feels the spot is right he can just touch it. In this case he didn't, so he moved the ball.

Reality is he should have moved the ball even more because it should have been spotted where Dak started the slide, not where he ended up at the end of his slide. The ball should have been moved back a couple of yards, and if that had been done there wouldn't have been time to spike it anyway because the entire offense would have had to move and re-set.

 

[GORICO]

We have to go back to the Cowboys' last brutal playoff defeat, in 2019 against the Rams.

In that game, the Rams were driving just before halftime to try and secure a long field goal attempt for a kicker some of you may have heard of, named Greg Zuerlein.

With no timeouts left, Jared Goff completes a pass across the middle to Robert Woods, who is tackled and immediately spots the ball himself. The center grabs the ball and the offense gets in position to snap it. At no point does anyone hand the ball to the referee. In fact, if you blink, you may have missed the referee completely. He zooms into the screen momentarily, lightly taps the top of the football, then scurries out of the way so the Rams can snap the ball and clock it.

Watch:

Contrary to what Tony Romo would like you to believe, the referee does not need to be physically handed the football, they simply need to touch it. Biadasz had the ball in hand, on the turf, with four seconds left on the clock. A competent referee simply needed to run to the line (but not into the quarterback), touch the football, and then get out of the way, allowing it to be snapped and clocked with about one second to spare.

A few things:

1. This is not the reason the Cowboys lost.

2. Asking Dak to run, slide, and clock the ball was still a dumb, and far too risky, play call.

3. This is not a conspiracy against the Cowboys; it's incompetent officiating.

4. Regardless of points 1, 2 & 3, the fact of the matter is the Cowboys absolutely should have gotten the opportunity to run one more play from the 24-yard-line.

but....it is Daks fault he would not retain poise and either throw to receivers open or if he had greater anticipation throw receivers open....way way way before we had to rely on that last play?

even Tony Romo commentating was seeing receivers open Dak missed as he hesitated and dboule pumped and i saw at least 2 he through behind them for incompletions?

 

[SteveTheCowboy]

Lol, what are you talking about? Are you supporting my point?

No...I do not support your point.

You said the player can't spot. That's fine...but if he does...it doesn't mean it's incorrect.

Looked to me like the ref moved the ball just because. Just because the player spotted it and by GOD we're aren't having that MOVE THE BALL BACK! and Take more time off the clock.

I don't know if it was or wasn;t right....I don't like the ref moving it just...because. He never looked to the sideline or anything just moved it because.

 

[Homer]

Romo did say Dak should have looked for and given the ball to the referee. I don't believe this was during the initial play but later when they were reviewing it with Gene Steratore:





Your last point there is exactly my feelings. If you go through enough tape on these plays, which I've done today, you'll see that more often than not the players spot the ball themselves. In the cases where they hand it to the ref, the ref is usually sprinting behind the play and is there to collect the ball as soon as the player is ruled down (see first Packers GIF). Otherwise, the ref will just sneak in to tap the ball and move (see the second Packers GIF). But again, there's no official ruling on how this play should be handled, which is why it's a dumb play to call. But all things considered, this team should have had one more play with a second left.

man why is the ref so far away? why is he not sprinting towards the ball while the play is unfolding.

oh well. very entertaining to say the least.

 

[boysbeyond4ever]

Here the thing Double Wing in the second gif with Green Bay that is not the Umpire. Watch carefully - the Umpire is properly positioned almost parallel to the referee in the offensive backfield whereas the official who comes into spot that ball clearly drops back toward the defensive backfield. That's the Back Judge. Again raising the question - why wasn't the Back Judge running in to mark the ball? If that was the Umpire then why wasn't the Umpire moved into a similar position here as in those games? No that was the Back Judge in all likelihood so again where was he when he likely closer to the play at that point and had easier route to the ball to spot more quickly?

Look we all know it was dumb call there, but that shouldn't excuse the fact that the officials failed catastrophically, and I think knew it- hence they didn't consult with the League Office. Why the League Office didn't do something there is also an issue.

Edit I stand corrected the Umpire will move back toward the defensive backfield after marking the bakll in those siuations as a more complete clip showed, but it raised another question I'll address in a sec.

 

[TheHerd]

While Dak was running, he should have just thrown a pass backwards out of bounds near the end of his run. That would have stopped the clock.

I wondered what are the rules on that? Does anyone know? Seems like a loop hole I've never seen used to stop the clock.

 

[boysbeyond4ever]

Double wing if you look at the wide video you posted it raises the issue of that Umpire's physical fitness at a bare minimum. In the NFL index it states clearly that Both the Referee and the Umpire stand 15 yards behind the offensive line, yet when the ball is snapped and the play surges forward Neither the Referee nor the Umpire are visible until Dak has already slid to the ground - they are both roughly based on the NFL Index Roughly 30 yards behind the play around the Dallas 40 or 45 when Dak Slides at the SF 26, and it's the Referee who appears either to be quicker or react quicker to moved toward the play as it unfolds. In fact he is about 10 yards ahead of the Umpire initially, who doesn't move past the Referee until he slows down approaching the SF 40 yard line. This has to be problematic as the officials have to be in some sort of anticipation of the next play especially in that situation, seasons are on the lines, playing and coaching careers can be on the line. Surely we have a right to expect better from people we are supposed to trust to be better than that, no?

 

[TheHerd]

Theoretically, the 49ers could have just let Dak slide and not touched him down, thus letting a few more seconds run off the clock and effectively ending the game without the Cowboys even getting to the line to attempt a snap.

It's an interesting play in the sense that yes, the defense was caught off guard. They were not expecting it and didn't quite know how to react. Immediately tackling/touching Dak as he slid was, in hindsight, probably the wrong move. Let him slide - he still has to be touched down.

Once q QB slides, the play is over. That's why the QB is uniquely positioned to do this kind of play. Every team practices this in fact. They all have a number of seconds which they will use to consider this type of play a possibility. Most teams I've heard are around 16 or 18 seconds. 14 seems really tight.

 

[TheHerd]

Double wing if you look at the wide video you posted it raises the issue of that Umpire's physical fitness at a bare minimum. In the NFL index it states clearly that Both the Referee and the Umpire stand 15 yards behind the offensive line, yet when the ball is snapped and the play surges forward Neither the Referee nor the Umpire are visible until Dak has already slid to the ground - they are both roughly based on the NFL Index Roughly 30 yards behind the play around the Dallas 40 or 45 when Dak Slides at the SF 26, and it's the Referee who appears either to be quicker or react quicker to moved toward the play as it unfolds. In fact he is about 10 yards ahead of the Umpire initially, who doesn't move past the Referee until he slows down approaching the SF 40 yard line. This has to be problematic as the officials have to be in some sort of anticipation of the next play especially in that situation, seasons are on the lines, playing and coaching careers can be on the line. Surely we have a right to expect better from people we are supposed to trust to be better than that, no?

Did we talk to them before the play and alert them? That might have helped too. So many blunders. But this game really had nothing to do with that last play. And I don't think anyone here is really saying that.

 

[boysbeyond4ever]

So what is the complaint here?

That the ref shouldn’t have respotted the ball?

He should have been there sooner. As I just posted by the time the play ended he was over 30 yards behind the play and then reacted so late he was still 7-10 yards behind the referee coming into his position, for at least one second. Maybe only one, but that's all it takes. obviously.

I mean they're already fifteen yards behind the LOS, do they think they have to stay behind to better spot a hold 30-40 yards downfield? It wasn't even a drop-back where they had to wait to see if there was a hold in the backfield - they should have been moving downfield as soon as the Dak crossed the LOS with the ball., if only to spot any down field penalty, certainly the Umpire should.

 

[boysbeyond4ever]

Did we talk to them before the play and alert them? That might have helped too. So many blunders. But this game really had nothing to do with that last play. And I don't think anyone here is really saying that.

Exactly the issue is that there was a lot of poor inconsistent officiating yesterday, and has been all year, that has allowed the officials to play an outsized role in the outcomes of too many games, and certainly not just Cowboy games though I have no problem saying that when affects the Cowboys I notice it more and am even more disgusted by it.