Somewhere along the line, somebody interpreted "goes to the ground" as meaning "starts to fall."
That was me, Percy. However there was another aspect to that comment which I left out of our discussion. This clears up my position, and is an aspect no one seems to be talking about.
Dez goes up and gets two hands on the ball at the forward point
As Dez comes back down Shields gets a hand on the ball and it separates from Dez's hands.
Dez's left foot is down. He still has not maintained control of the ball
Dez pins the ball against his shoulder pad
Dez's right foot lands and he picks his left foot up for the "lunge" At this point he has transferred the ball.
Shield's right leg is between Dez's legs and as Dez take a step with his left,
Shield's trips him.
Now Dez is trying to take a step and these two portions of the sequence happen at the same time. But clearly the review considered the trip, because there is no way Dez would have maintained balance the way Shield's thigh was blocking the right leg of Dez.
Thus he is seen as going to the ground. I worded it start to fall, and for some reason you think that matters what I called it.
Go to youtube. Lower right corner is the gear. Click it. Set the speed at .05. This is the slowest and still have the audio.
Move the video to the 1:40 mark and stop the video. Find the end of red progress bar, the bubble at the front of the progress. This gives you control over the progress. You can now move from second to second.
At the 1:44/45 mark you see Dez being tripped. Now you will want to argue that Dez is taking his step with the left foot for his lunge. But to be sure he felt his right leg being impeded and he lunged. But that impeding is the crucial aspect which is in reality a trip, read tackle, and since this is before Dez was upright and making a football move (which he never did) it is seen as the catalyst of why he went to the ground. And in this nugget it is clear he has to maintain the ball all through the catch process.
He did not, the ground caused it to pop out and thus no catch.
Fact is the link itself when you open it shows a freeze frame from a different angle. This is a split second after Dez's leg came into contact with Shield's leg. You know this because in the video you see Shield's leg wrap around Dez's leg with contact and this freeze frame is the next moment after when they both were going to the ground.
Right or wrong the people who reviewed this had to take into account Dez was going to the ground after contact, and had his hand out to brace his fall. Because in a video moment after this, Dez is perpendicular with the ground with no contact to the ground. He could not take a step with his right foot because it was being impeded.
It might even be argued that with Shield's tipping the ball loose, and Dez pinning the ball to his shoulder pad, there was no moment when Dez had both hands on the ball or
control before being contacted and tripped/tackled, which was the cause for him to go to the ground, which immediately activates the going to the ground rule of control.
All the Blandino said and Mara said doesn't apply to what happened in those 8 seconds in the game. Furthermore Mara's comment that I have seen posted by most of the press left off the last statement he made, which is as follows.
"I think where we are unanimous," Mara told ESPN on Tuesday, "[are] plays like the Dez Bryant play in Green Bay, going to the ground, [and] the Calvin Johnson play from a couple of years ago. I think all of us agree that those should be completions.
So let's write the language to make them completions."
Now note the title of this ABC article which drastically contradicts the title of this thread.
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/committee-bryant-14-playoff-play-catch-future/story?id=53395796
And here is the video.
what is that quacking sound? Oh, there it is it's KJJ and Blindfaith.
