Ben Austro

Sun Oct 29 • 3:57 pm EST

Inexplicable touchdown reversal

Bears at Saints (video). Zach Miller scores a touchdown for the Bears on a third-quarter catch. This should be the end of this entry, but I am compelled to explain further, despite the fact that I cannot.

As Miller caught the ball, he was injured and rolled over with the ball and dropped it. When reviewed by the centralized replay, referee Carl Cheffers was also compelled to explain why they were taking away the touchdown. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I have to think he had to explain the unexplainable.

Miller completed the catch process by rolling over — “survived the ground” in replay parlance. Although Miller struggles to secure the ball as he goes to the ground, which can extend the catch process, once he has demonstrable control of the ball on the ground for an element of time, the play is over.

To rule otherwise warps the time element to a degree that it was never intended, and gives the impression that the catch process is a moving goalpost. While there may be confusion from fans in general over the catch rules, there are very few calls in contention. For officials and those well-versed in the rules, there is much less — maybe 1 catch every 2 years that has broad disagreement. This season, however, has had many of these head-scratching calls in replay, which is really undermining confidence in the system.

Referee Carl Cheffers spoke to a pool reporter after the game:

Q: On Zach Miller’s overturned touchdown, what exactly did you see or what did New York [centralized replay center] see to reverse the call?

Cheffers: Obviously we are all familiar with the process of the catch at this point. So we ruled that he was going to the ground as part of the process of the catch. So when he goes to the round, he has to survive the ground, therefore it’s incomplete. The ball hit the ground out of his control. So as part of the process of the catch, he did not complete that process. And therefore it was incomplete, and they overturned the call on the field.

Q: Was it a cut-and-dry call basically?

Cheffers: The are always close, but that process has been in place for some time now. So, that is what we ended up ruling.