Quote:
Originally Posted by youngump
My reading of this thread is that almost everybody has this as PI with an uncatchable ball, therefore no flag. A few people have a maybe catchable ball. A few people (not sure any are actually officials) have a catchable ball.
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Phrases like "maybe catchable" I find funny here. A ruling of uncatchable ball means you are certain the ball could not have been caught by the interfered-with player. If you have any doubt as to whether the ball was uncatchable, it wasn't uncatchable; the provision was not meant to deal with close cases. What I find especially surprising is that some of you look at that video and are certain the ball was uncatchable. I doubt you'd be saying so if you'd been in the position of that back judge, or any other official on that field; I think you're bending over backwards to try to see the final ruling as correct.
I also don't believe the "philosophy" of the intercepted ball as has been stated in this thread was meant to be a material change in the rule. I think those of you invoking that philosophy are mistakenly applying it, leaving out a detail that you were probably told. I'm sure that whoever promulgated that philosophy meant that you need not project the trajectory of the ball beyond the point at which it was intercepted or knocked away in determining whether the ball was catchable, and also that if the pass was touched before or simultaneously with the player-opponent contact, there was no interference. I'm sure they did not mean that the mere occurrence of such an interception or deflection at any point in space and time behind the spot at which the interference took place vitiated an interference call.