Saints player goes out of bounds, but clock continues to run

The play I'm referring to happened in the fourth quarter. I don't remember the exact minute mark, but I do remember it was in the final minutes of the game as the Saints were trying to eat clock and our defense was trying to stop them with enough time left to give our offense our final possession. The Saint player made the reception and tried to maintain his balance and stay in bounds to keep the clock going. He was unable to and ended up out of bounds. I remember thinking, yes clock stops, BUT IT CONTINUED TO RUN. Moments later Pete was shown on the sideline absolutely beside himself and was wrestling with his headset while laying into an official.

Does anyone else remember this play? Did the clock actually continue to run and if so, why was it allowed to do so?

It did keep running, we used our final timeout to stop it. Reason, poor offictiating

I remember the play it should have stopped. Sherman said in his after game interview what the ref said to him. Something to the effect that the player that made the tackles momentum carried them both out of bounds or they would of landed in bounds. Something to that effect I forget the exact words but that was what he expressed to Sherman. If you wanna hear it check out the interview after the game that Sherman had. I think it was a crap call but it was just one of many other crap calls of the day. We used our final timeout at the time before the two minute warning if im not mistaken.

This was a real manure laden call. The ref's explanation is so bizarre, I can't even remember the last time I saw that called-You could argue then all the time that nope the offensive player's forward progress was stopped every time a guy catches the ball, makes a slight forward move and is pushed out of bounds.

We sure could've used that timeout.

Runners get stood up for several seconds sometimes before forward progress is called and the whistle is blown. Hightower gets pushed out by McCray immediately; you can even tell by his frustration that he was thinking he should have just gone out instead of fighting for extra yards. Time management strategy is incredibly important in football and it makes no sense to have different rules for the offense and defense when it comes to a ball carrier going out of bounds.

Watch the ref's arms. He starts to raise both to indicate clock stoppage, but then drops his left and then keeps it winding with his right.



I'm pretty sure this is what caused Pete to launch his headset, and rightfully so.

West TX Hawk":1mm25ned said:

This was a real manure laden call. The ref's explanation is so bizarre, I can't even remember the last time I saw that called-You could argue then all the time that nope the offensive player's forward progress was stopped every time a guy catches the ball, makes a slight forward move and is pushed out of bounds.

We sure could've used that timeout.

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I went nuts when it happened. It was so blatant you would think after all the other bad calls against us and the complete and obvious ignoring of the Saints penalties, this would be a huge topic of discussion.

To me it was absolute proof the officials were trying to give the Saints the win. I would bet good money if Kearse comes down in bounds either it is called out anyway or a flag comes flying out to probably push us back 10 yards and play the down over.

I've always felt like the NFL steers games for the purpose of making the better team have to play a little up hill as to make the game look more competitive and keep scores close at half time so viewers don't tune out but this game looked alot more like they were going to do everything to help NO get a win.

The NFC south is in pretty bad shape wins wise. Except Atlanta who was playing Green bay the rest of the division was helped to a tune of 44 penalties against thier opponent while the opponents were only given 13.

It looks very much like the NFL was trying to help them out and it didn't hurt that a Seattle win would push us way out in front of the rest of our division.

Giving the NFC south the wins made that division and ours look more competitive and would potentially help ratings that are down supposedly in that region of football.

This is what I've thought. It's not personal against the Hawks because I've seen it league wide in the few games I've been able to watch, which should also say something about sample size.

The only conspiracy is the conspiracy of parity. It's not like NO is the NFL's darlings, and we're definitely not.

I remember wondering WTF the ref is keeping the clock running? And then it was either Wagner or Wright standing beside him going;




Horrible call

The only way that it can be ruled in bounds is if the referee was going to award forward progress. I didn't hear Sherman's account on the play, but if the referee did in fact say that the player would have been tackled in bounds except for forcible momentum, then that would be completely incorrect. There is no force out rule. That rule specified interpretation of both the 'would have made the catch inbounds' as well as the 'would have been tackled inbounds' scenarios. That rule no longer exists.

You can push a player out of bounds. You can also stand up a player and halt forward progress and still force him out of bounds laterally -- so long as a referee doesn't blow the play dead (forward progress rule applies). The only mechanism possible in this case is if forward progress is declared.

However in the case where you laterally drive a player off the field, forward progress is only invoked on the referee's whistle. The only case where forward progress can be awarded prior to blowing the play dead is if the player is driven back from the point of progress.

Attyla the Hawk":h63rb5e8 said:

The only way that it can be ruled in bounds is if the referee was going to award forward progress. I didn't hear Sherman's account on the play, but if the referee did in fact say that the player would have been tackled in bounds except for forcible momentum, then that would be completely incorrect. There is no force out rule. That rule specified interpretation of both the 'would have made the catch inbounds' as well as the 'would have been tackled inbounds' scenarios. That rule no longer exists.

You can push a player out of bounds. You can also stand up a player and halt forward progress and still force him out of bounds laterally -- so long as a referee doesn't blow the play dead (forward progress rule applies). The only mechanism possible in this case is if forward progress is declared.

However in the case where you laterally drive a player off the field, forward progress is only invoked on the referee's whistle. The only case where forward progress can be awarded prior to blowing the play dead is if the player is driven back from the point of progress.

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Thanks for taking the time to break that down. There is zero question is cost Seattle valuable time and more chances at a win.

But why is there no talk about this outside of this forum?

You could make a great case the officials were trying to steer this game even before that happened but after it happened their is no honest way to see it any differently.

This takes me back to the AZ game were we had so many critically timed penalties all through the game and on the last drive when it appeared we could get into field goal range for a potential winning field goal after moving to mid field with a first down and over a minute plus time outs still in pur pocket, we were again called on ticky tacky game killing calls the moved us back 20 yards and put us in a 1st an 30. Pretty much guaranteeing no shot of a last minute field goal.

Once OT started and they held thier flags we marched down the field for a short field goal. Unfortunately we missed of course. But what a stark difference when they let them play.

This is the play where I lost my shit. Ugh. Makes me so angry. Completely nonsensical call.

In a league where the difference between winning and losing is razor thin, these types of mistakes are unacceptable as they can and do completely impact the outcome of a game.

Anyone think our chances of winning don't go exponentially up if we have that time back?

This doesnt even touch on the free points the refs gave NO on phantom calls.

This is why the "quit whining about the refs" crowd on here bothers me.

I get the notion behind blaming team play first and foremost. But to ignore the impact that incompetency has on a game is burying your head in the sand.

There is no reason this 9 billion dollar industry can't be better officiated. None.

You can clearly see the ref getting ready to signal to stop the clock, then he abruptly changes his mind . Strange play indeed.

Hollywood_N_Vine":3r0cjm0q said:

You can clearly see the ref getting ready to signal to stop the clock, then he abruptly changes his mind . Strange play indeed.

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Atayla explains this above. Essentially the official would have had to blow his whistle before the player went out of bounds and unless the official is running around with his whistle in his mouth just waiting for a play like that to happen, there is no way he could have blown it fast enough.

The fact they kept the clock running the way they did is proof that everything we were seeing and saying throughout the game was exactly what we thought.

They were steering the game to give NO a win. The same as the rest of the struggling teams in that division where the officials called 44 penalties against NFC south opponents and only 13 against them.

To me it's obvious they are trying to boost viewership in that region and it doesn't hurt that they are making the NFC west and AFC west look more competitive at the same time.

Parity is what the NFL believes makes money.

Does anyone think if they officated a game against Green Bay the way ours or Oaklands was officiated the NFL world wouldn't be exploding right now?

Anyone have a gif of this play?

I couldn't watch the game, so this may explain some of the outrage I've been reading on here

253hawk":3vp3kb2c said:

Runners get stood up for several seconds sometimes before forward progress is called and the whistle is blown. Hightower gets pushed out by KJ immediately; you can even tell by his frustration that he was thinking he should have just gone out instead of fighting for extra yards. Time management strategy is incredibly important in football and it makes no sense to have different rules for the offense and defense when it comes to a ball carrier going out of bounds.

I'm pretty sure this is what caused Pete to launch his headset, and rightfully so.

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All we can do at this point, is shake our heads in disgust and scream at our TV's, and that's exactly what I did when the clock kept right on ticking, it wasn't an honest mistake made by the corrupt bastard Referees, they'd been doing SHIT like that...ALL GAME LONG.
You can't reasonably expect to win a game that is corrupted from the get-go.

Hawkpower":2rc0ag61 said:

In a league where the difference between winning and losing is razor thin, these types of mistakes are unacceptable as they can and do completely impact the outcome of a game.

Anyone think our chances of winning don't go exponentially up if we have that time back?

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In this case, no.

There was plenty of time on the clock even with no timeouts (1:50).

In my opinion, the biggest contributors were the following:

1. Seattle's penchant for trying to get into 2nd/3rd and manageable.

Seattle always seems to be driven to get under 10 yards to go on second and third downs. They are too formulaic in their approach and do not account for circumstance where they should deviate from this approach. It's simply awful situational execution.

Here are the first plays of 3 series of downs in that final drive that doomed us:

1. 1st and 10 (1:50). Russell scrambles for 5 yards. Costs us :22 seconds which is about 3-5 pass attempts
2. 1st and 10 (1:01). Baldwin for 4 yards. Costs us 24 seconds to next snap. Another 3-5
3. 2nd and 10 16) After spike to stop clock, Pass to Prosise for 8 yards. Costs :14 seconds.


The short curl pass to Baldwin for minimal yardage was the biggest factor in the lack of time and should never have been attempted.

In that situation, you have to get out of bounds, or make chunk yardage. Incompletions are better than 4 yard advances. Wilson would have been better served to dump a pass at his receivers' feet and took his chances on another play.

2. Taking what the defense gives you

In 1:50 we got 6 plays off (if you omit spiking the ball). That's just pathetic awareness plain and simple. In that scenario you have one, maybe two, opportunities over the middle (and should be for chunk yardage). Seattle took 5 plays in the field of play. That's just critically awful decision making on Wilson's part.

It really has no bearing on what Bevell called. Ultimately the decisions and the clock management fall on Wilson exclusively. In this case, he situationally had to understand what he could get inbounds and what he couldn't. If a play isn't there, you dump it to the ground and you dial up another play. They are playing prevent, so getting 10-15 yards is far easier. But you have to get big yards and you really can't indulge in run after catch type of options.

It may be easier for us to just blame someone else for our problem. But this was a case of serious misplays given the circumstance. We made errors that we should not have made -- and did so repeatedly on that drive. Time and happenstance will tell if we commit the same decision making gaffes in future games.

Jerhawk":2g5xo9wk said:

Anyone have a gif of this play?

I couldn't watch the game, so this may explain some of the outrage I've been reading on here

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Scroll up. or ... it's here:


https://giant.gfycat.com/GivingPersonal ... uirrel.gif

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I was pacing back and forth, mumbling and grumbling under my breath almost all game up to this point about the officials. On the last TD, I'm pretty sure I pointed at the screen and said something to the effect of "what a bunch of horse poop" — but I still felt like maybe it wasn't Vegas pulling strings, I mean, come on, Seahawks only 1pt favorites? It has SUCKER BET written all over it! Why wouldn't you put money on Seattle to cover that, it's a no-brainer. Well, not unless you throw in the best game-managers in all of sports (ie. NFL refs)

The second I saw that they were going to run the clock on that play, I KNEW we had no chance in this game to win by more than 1 point. I still thought we would go down and score and the refs were going to give us that chance, not sure how they would have taken away our extra point attempt—maybe a couple flags to move us back would have come into play if Kearse and Wilson had been able to connect.

But, if you follow the money, you'll see that Seahawks losing or winning by only 1 point was the ONLY outcome for this game. It's unfortunate now because it's happened two weeks in a row for us where Vegas is trying to fix spreads with Refs.All I have to say is the NFL better knock that $#!t off or ratings are going to keep getting worse and worse.

Attyla -- I agree 100% with your whole post but do go back and look before the pass to Baldwin. We got the first down and then decide to change out a player. Then we throw the pass to Baldwin at 1.01 for 4 yards. That whole sequence and then leading to the next one incomplete was the BIGGEST waste of time on that whole drive. I know you agree noting the short curl but look at the whole sequence from completion of the first down before, then the pass to Baldwin followed by the incomplete. It is HORRIFIC clock management.

What should have happened after the first down is a quick curl out to the sidelines so it is completed and clock stops or incomplete and clock stops. Alternatively you spike the ball.

Watched it again with the audio and the whistle is blowing really quickly as Sherman is suplexing him out of bounds.

My sense is the ref saw Hightower trying to square up and stay in bounds and blew the whistle too quickly to signal a loss of forward progress before the play had completed.

My read, like everyone else's, is that this was a blown call, but I can *kinda* understand how the call got blown, while still thinking the ref blew it.

FWIW this was kind of surprising to me as throughout the game I was surprised at how leniant the refs were being in not flagging people for still taking ball carriers to the ground well after the whistle and hitting them after they were already out of bounds (both teams were doing it, and I know people don't want to hear this, but on the more egregious ones Seattle was getting away with this more frequently than the Saints -- IIRC I saw it once with the Saints and two or three teams with the Hawks).

Maybe trying to correct for that is why the whistle came so quick here? I dunno, but the whistle definitely came too quick on that call and the clock should have stopped on that play for sure IMO. PC was right to be pissed off.