Quote:
Originally Posted by MD Longhorn
On THIS play, the receiver makes no effort to catch this ball - had he done so, and then been prevented from doing so, the case might be different. OTOH, it might not - at the moment the defender first contacts the receiver, there is already a defender heading toward the ball in between the receiver (who is heading away from it) and the ball. The existence of that defender (whether he catches it or not) makes it impossible that the receiver would have ever had a chance to catch this ball. To do so, he would have had to go through the defender covering him (possible OPI) and then gone through the defender who actually caught the ball (definite OPI). There is zero chance this receiver could have caught this ball given the existence of the defender who actually caught it.
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Gee, you think maybe he seemed to make no effort because the opponent holding him was in his face at that moment so he couldn't
see the ball?
This is about as textbook a case of pass interference as you could illustrate. One player has turned around to play the ball while the opponent has his back to the ball and wraps him up. The ball comes down in a place where you can't say the player facing the ball could not have gotten his hands to. The BJ is about as well placed as I could imagine to see not only the act of interference but also the path of the ball; I don't see why anybody thinks he'd need help to make that judgment. And just in case you've never seen one player beat two opponents to the ball on a play like that, I'll tell you it happens.
For those of you saying A87 was already going backward when he was contacted, suppose he had the ball when he was tackled in the field of play like that. Where would you spot the ball? I bet you wouldn't've assumed all that backward momentum was his own in that case.
And as to the long-haired player who caught the ball, I could see A87 possibly getting shoulder to shoulder with him and having a shot at the ball had the other player not interfered with his opp'ty. "Uncatchable" means "impossible to catch", and how can you say that was impossible? Of course if the ball were intercepted or deflected a sufficient distance in front of the interfered-with player to have made it impossible for him to get to in time, that's one way a pass could be uncatchable, but the time and distance in this case are not like that.