Dean Blandino, Asst VP of Officiating, explains what a catch is if you're a Bengals WR

[Floatyworm]

I'm not getting a video when I click the link

Keep trying.....I think the NFL.com server might be ready to give because this video has come to light. I'm not shocked their server has collapsed. (Another conspiracy for another day.) I was having problems myself yesterday...But this video is a must see- And should be explained what the difference is...Why Gresham's catch stood...even though he drops the pass and doesn't complete the catch....vs Dez's catch.

Would love to see an explaination go national......

But you know how the NFL likes to sweep things under the rug that they don't want to deal with. Just like the Ray Rice investigation...they just want it to go away.

 

[TheFinisher]

There really must be someone held accountable for this. Dez made a late game-changing play that should have resulted in us going up with 4 minutes left in the Divisional Round. THIS WAS AN EGREGIOUS REVERSAL THAT ENDED OUR SEASON WHEN WE HAD A CHANCE TO WIN A SUPER BOWL. The ridiculous ruling on letting Suh play after he was suspended, the late hits on Romo throughout the game Sunday, the wrongful cap penalty we endured for two seasons, and now this... I'm tired of the league constanty ******* us,

 

[AmericasTeam31]

Seems to me that you are all watching the wrong part of the video. Watch the second half of the video with the G. Bernard fumble. It's a very similar play even more so than the Gresham catch. Bernard jumps for a catch, 180 in the air after the catch, two feet down, as the third foot hits the ground the defender hits him and strips the ball. They ruled that since it was called a catch and fumble on the field they didn't see enough to overturn it in the booth.

So to recap: Jump in the air and establish control of the ball Check and Check
Land on your feet with 2 feet down Check and Check
Make contact with the defender simultaneously with your third foot landing Check and Check
Ball comes loose after third foot hits the ground Check and Check
So one is a catch and one isn't.. In the Bernard case the defender is the same as the ground in the Dez case. Since the only thing that has to be established in both cases was control and a football move.

 

[cowboyvic]

There really must be someone held accountable for this. Dez made a late game-changing play that should have resulted in us going up with 4 minutes left in the Divisional Round. THIS WAS AN EGREGIOUS REVERSAL THAT ENDED OUR SEASON WHEN WE HAD A CHANCE TO WIN A SUPER BOWL. The ridiculous ruling on letting Suh play after he was suspended, the late hits on Romo throughout the game Sunday, the wrongful cap penalty we endured for two seasons, and now this... I'm tired of the league constanty ******* us,

You hit the nail on the head. but nothing will happen. Garrett,Jerry and Stephen should be screaming right now about this screw job. it may have cost the cowboys the Super Bowl.this is a unreal disgrace.

 

[ConstantReboot]

You deserve a cookie or something. Read through 7+ pages. Post after post I kept thinking it would dawn on people that it's the second video that's most relevant. The first video barely has a connection to the Dez call. The comments from the original link on Blogging the Boys point it out too.

Basically it's...

Giovanni Bernard: Catch, 2 feet down, turn and immediately stripped = football move
Dez Bryant: Catch, 2 feet down, turn AND 2+ steps AND dive to the end zone = not a football move

Giovanni Bernard: Ruled a fumble on the field and upheld due to not having clear evidence to overturn
Dez Bryant: Ruled a catch on the field but overturned despite not having clear evidence to overturn

Giovanni Bernard: Said Blandino, "Whenever it's questionable, we stay with the ruling on the field."
Dez Bryant: Said Blandino, "Whenever it's questionable, we stay with the ruling on the field...unless it's Dallas."


Little kids go out in the yard with a football and dream of making the kind of catch Dez made. NFL doesn't want that.

Absolutely correct and thanks for pointing that out. That second video was the most impactful. It shows that the Dez catch was based bias and faulty interpretation. If they keep showing that video and then Dez's catch to the masses there will why Blandino all of a sudden decided to change his tune. As an official of his stature that can only mean that they are making the rules as they go along and not really following the rule book per se.

 

[ConstantReboot]

To say that this call cost them the game would be to excuse or ignore the many mistakes made by the Cowboys that actually caused their defeat.

The Bailey missed FG, Murray's fumble, Romo taking back to back sacks at the end of the third/beginning of the fourth, Sterling Moore getting abused by Davante Adams, failing to get a stop from the 4:06 mark onward, and never getting the ball back.

Yes, they screwed the call up. The worse offense from a procedural standpoint was not adding time back to the clock for the review.

Nonetheless Dallas was in a position to score and they took that ability away from them and might have cost them the game. A call that in retrospect is filled with a lot of bias and a lack of reasoning why it was overturned. Does that mean the call cost them the game? Of course not. However, it had an impact on the game in which it didn't give them a chance to win it. An impact that has nothing to do with the game at all and everything to do with a faulty call made by officials who's job is it to show no bias and favoritism whatsoever.

Thus the Cowboys nation demand an explanation why that was overturned. Because it seems that they used anyways possible to make sure that the outcome of the game favored another team over another and that in itself has lack of integrity written all over it.

 

[ConstantReboot]

You hit the nail on the head. but nothing will happen. Garrett,Jerry and Stephen should be screaming right now about this screw job. it may have cost the cowboys the Super Bowl.this is a unreal disgrace.

I know Jason will probably take the high road about this. But certainly Jerry needs to man up and take the NFL to a court of law. Millions of dollars was lost because of a erroneous call with bias written all over it. If they don't know it I think the fans should demand that they should take action. The integrity of the NFL is at stake here.

 

[Plankton]

Nonetheless Dallas was in a position to score and they took that ability away from them and might have cost them the game. A call that in retrospect is filled with a lot of bias and a lack of reasoning why it was overturned. Does that mean the call cost them the game? Of course not. However, it had an impact on the game in which it didn't give them a chance to win it. An impact that has nothing to do with the game at all and everything to do with a faulty call made by officials who's job is it to show no bias and favoritism whatsoever.

Thus the Cowboys nation demand an explanation why that was overturned. Because it seems that they used anyways possible to make sure that the outcome of the game favored another team over another and that in itself has lack of integrity written all over it.

They gave their explanation - they think he was falling to the ground naturally, and didn't complete the process of the catch. They didn't feel that the reaching for the goal line was a football move, thus he had to control the ball all the way through the ground, which didn't happen when the ball was dislodged from his grip when he landed.

I don't think that there was a preconceived bias as to who to favor with calls. In this instance, they messed up the call. It's not any consolation to Cowboy fans, but sometimes people (individuals and group) screw things up. If one were to paint a scenario where the league would make a call for a preferrable outcome, don't you think that they would want the Dallas Cowboys playing on Championship Sunday? The Cowboys, who draw eyeballs due to extreme love and extreme hate?

The rule is flawed, the call was bad, but the conspiracy is non-existent.

 

[31smackdown]

Hypothetical question.. a player while falling, catches as pass with both hands and then his momentum brings his arms and hands to the ground where the ball touches the ground but does not jar the ball from the players hands or grip and as the ball lifts off the ground in his possession continued momentum causes it to hit his helmet and he loses possession but regains it again before the ball hits the ground. Is it a catch?

 

[samilpa4life]

I'm very sure that if he is not tripped...he scores.

yeah i saw that why wasn't tripping called??? it would have been a first down

 

[ConstantReboot]

They gave their explanation - they think he was falling to the ground naturally, and didn't complete the process of the catch. They didn't feel that the reaching for the goal line was a football move, thus he had to control the ball all the way through the ground, which didn't happen when the ball was dislodged from his grip when he landed.

I don't think that there was a preconceived bias as to who to favor with calls. In this instance, they messed up the call. It's not any consolation to Cowboy fans, but sometimes people (individuals and group) screw things up. If one were to paint a scenario where the league would make a call for a preferrable outcome, don't you think that they would want the Dallas Cowboys playing on Championship Sunday? The Cowboys, who draw eyeballs due to extreme love and extreme hate?

The rule is flawed, the call was bad, but the conspiracy is non-existent.

Its not the rules thats the problem. Its the officials that are trying to use it to justify their botched call.

Listen to the words they say - "they think, they know, it doesn't look like, I don't believe " yadda, yadda. Those are words that means uncertainty and lacking concrete evidence. When you judge a play based on uncertainty than it should be then left up to what the original call should have been which was a catch. There is no evidence to prove that there was a shadow of a doubt that WAS NOT a catch. Thus their reasoning is nothing more than bias and favoritism and should be looked at with a careful eye by a court of law.

Unless they can prove within a shadow of a doubt that is not a completed pass and show the world without using ambiguous words, Jerry has the rights to sue them if he so wish to.

 

[Plankton]

Its not the rules thats the problem. Its the officials that are trying to use it to justify their botched call.

Listen to the words they say - "they think, they know, it doesn't look like, I don't believe " yadda, yadda. Those are words that means uncertainty and lacking concrete evidence. When you judge a play based on uncertainty than it should be then left up to what the original call should have been which was a catch. There is no evidence to prove that there was a shadow of a doubt that WAS NOT a catch. Thus their reasoning is nothing more than bias and favoritism and should be looked at with a careful eye by a court of law.

Unless they can prove within a shadow of a doubt that is not a completed pass and show the world without using ambiguous words, Jerry has the rights to sue them if he so wish to.

Court of law? Good god, this is football.

Look, I understand being upset, disappointed or angry with a call. But saying that Jerry Jones has the right to sue over this is so far over the top, I have no idea what to say.

The call was bad, the rule is ambiguous, the result is not what we wanted. But, that's where it ends. This isn't the first bad call in the history of the NFL, nor will it be the last. Time to move on.

 

[percyhoward]

If the ref believes he is falling without the contact causing him to fall then the Dez catch is incomplete.

The field judge's ruling of "down by contact" requires conclusive evidence that Dez would have fallen on his own, even with no defender present, in order to overturn the call.

Isn't the difference here that contact was made before two feet hit the ground??

The field judge's ruling of "down by contact" means that the process of the catch was completed before the contact. There would have had to be clear evidence of contact before Dez got both feet down in order to overturn the ruling on the field.

As Blandino said a year ago, "Whenever it's questionable, we stay with the ruling on the field."

 

[Sinister]

I wonder if any of the national media will pick up on the discrepancy. I certainly think it is worth looking at.

I hate the idea of a conspiracy theory, but I can certainly entertain the idea that Blandino was looking for a make up call because of the widespread criticism from the Detroit game and the fact that he was photographed on the Cowboys party bus.

Lots of fans; especially, from other teams have a vested interest in watching the Cowboys lose. To say that those fans had no influence in the idea of a make up call is naive. I was actually expecting a make up call, I just didn't think it would have such a large effect on not only this game, but the NFL as a whole.

 

[DogFace]

It's said on twitter that Blandino has received some sort of record number of tweets reguarding the Dez play. He hasn't responded to one.

His last response was to a valued Seahawks fan about the Kam Chancelor running into the kicker play.

 

[Brooksey]

Dez was not "tripped."
Tripping in a specific action, and it is illegal.

That's what it looks like to me. It may have been incidental, I think he meant to do it.

 

[DallasEast]

It's said on twitter that Blandino has received some sort of record number of tweets reguarding the Dez play. He hasn't responded to one.

His last response was to a valued Seahawks fan about the Kam Chancelor running into the kicker play.

Blandino probably understands that he has the right to remain silent and that anything he says can and will be held against him in the court of public opinion. Blandino will have detractors if he continues commenting on the call. He will have detractors if he does not. It is a classic catch-22 that was irrelevant the moment the call was reversed.

It makes zero difference whether Blandino or the league stick to their guns or issue the most heartfelt apology ever written. The only important thing now is for the competition committee to review the current rule and remove its subjective language. Not doing so will create future opportunities for officials to get the call wrong. Every effort should be made to prevent that from happening ever again. Eliminate the root cause and no one can use it as an excuse down the road.

 

[tyke1doe]

Blandino probably understands that he has the right to remain silent and that anything he says can and will be held against him in the court of public opinion. Blandino will have detractors if he continues commenting on the call. He will have detractors if he does not. It is a classic catch-22 that was irrelevant the moment the call was reversed.

It makes zero difference whether Blandino or the league stick to their guns or issue the most heartfelt apology ever written. The only important thing now is for the competition committee to review the current rule and remove its subjective language. Not doing so will create future opportunities for officials to get the call wrong. Every effort should be made to prevent that from happening ever again. Eliminate the root cause and no one can use it as an excuse down the road.

I disagree. There will always been subjectivity over calls, especially a controversial one made during a playoff game. I've heard players and former referees say this very rule is in place to take subjectivity out of what constitutes a "catch." But with any rule, there's always that one case that the rule doesn't seemingly cover. And truth be told, rules covering catches, pass interference, holding and unsportsmanlike conduct are among the most controversial because they happen in the ordinary course of the game. The refs aren't always consistent with pass interference calls and holding calls. And fans even argue of those calls.
Wherever you have fans and whenever a call is made against their favorite team, particularly when the stakes are high, you're going to have situations like these. The good thing is that they don't happen that often. But when they do, they're heightened to the nth degree.

 

[DogFace]

Blandino probably understands that he has the right to remain silent and that anything he says can and will be held against him in the court of public opinion. Blandino will have detractors if he continues commenting on the call. He will have detractors if he does not. It is a classic catch-22 that was irrelevant the moment the call was reversed.

It makes zero difference whether Blandino or the league stick to their guns or issue the most heartfelt apology ever written. The only important thing now is for the competition committee to review the current rule and remove its subjective language. Not doing so will create future opportunities for officials to get the call wrong. Every effort should be made to prevent that from happening ever again. Eliminate the root cause and no one can use it as an excuse down the road.

Yeah. You're right. Although, he did answer several other questions about calls. So that says something.

 

[cowboyvic]

It's said on twitter that Blandino has received some sort of record number of tweets reguarding the Dez play. He hasn't responded to one.

His last response was to a valued Seahawks fan about the Kam Chancelor running into the kicker play.

Cheaters and cowards never respond. this man is a disgrace, and needs to resign.