NFL 2009 Season Week 15 Picks

The back to back Cardinals game is possible, but that won't be determined this week, or certainly not at least by virtue of a Packer win and Cowboy loss.

It will if the Cards win.

Since when is taking 4 steps with the ball not a completion and fumble?

2 feet down with the ball in your hands is a catch. Falling to the ground only matters when you don't get 2 feet down, particularly in the end zone on that Jennings TD.

The Jennings play was not a td. They interpreted the rule correctly, it's just a bad rule. There was a whole article about that one play on espn. http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id/7480/dirty-laundry-possession-in-the-end-zone That is, assuming this is the play you're still whining talking about.

He made the catch, took 2 full footed steps in bounds with complete possession, took a third step, then had the ball knocked loose, then was dragged to the ground.

In what sense was that not the act of catching the pass?

If it's the former it's misapplied in almost all uses, and if it's the latter, that's kind of lame.

Catch....2 steps...third step....ball knocked loose......fall to the ground. At the very latest, the catch process ended when the ball was knocked loose. The fall to the ground happend after that, and hadn't started until the ball was essentially no longer in possession.

But it wasn't the "fall" that caused the ball to come lose. "In the act of goiing to the ground, the ball came loose". Completely false.

I would think moreso that this rule would apply if you lost the ball because of the fall.

Here's another angle:

The rule does not mention anything about a defender knocking the ball away independent from any subsequent fall. If Jennings hadn't fallen, but after the third step, the ball was knocked away, is it then a catch and a touchdown? If it is, then there is no other conclusion that the rule does not apply in this case. Without using unrealistic examples like celebrating 30 seconds after the catch, I can easily argue that since the fall happened after the ball was knocked out, then the catch process was over before the fall.

This is exactly my point, and I think I just won the argument because of it.

The rule is intended for guys who are falling while making a catch, not players who make a catch and then fall down.

Agreed, but the rule doesn't say anything about the specific situations where it actually makes sense, which is why it's a shitty rule, though still applicable to both those scenarios.

The fact that it doesn't specify about certain situations seems to me to allow discretion. And this case seems to be a case where discretion would have ruled it as a touchdown.