Jason/Mike: please give me a rule cite for the passer losing his "status." Again, I didn't state anything in the facts about him "regaining his balance" or any such thing, even if it were relevent. He actually never lost his balance, and I've seen thousands of RP calls in a similar fashion. Its just that here, the pass thrown was of a very short distance, fairly hard (I guess; had to be by what happened) and the hit was late.

I'm not trying to justify the call; just trying to understand the rule for future reference. It seems what you are saying is that if the ball has been caught or even touched, there can't be RP, and that makes no sense to me. I would definitely need a citation to a rule to accept that.

Incidentally, the guy's name that slammed McMahon, I think, was Charles Martin.

IF you look under rule 2 player designation; then A passer. So, in the definitions it gives it to you...

Rule 2 sec 27 art 5

Or was that Charles Mann who did that to McMahon?

No. Mann played for the Redskins and was good but not dirty. It was Charles Martin, and he died in January of this year. Just ran a google search.

OK. Now I agree. I wasn't aware of that specific definition.

Okay I thought Mann was the dirty guy but now thinking about it you're Charles Martin (well, it was a few years ago!)

Yes, definitions are the keys to many answers!

Having finally remembered to check my books - wow, I'm surprised. My reading at this point is no flag - the QB is no longer a passer once the pass ends (NF 2-30-11), and if the INT was that close, he's a potential tackler whom it is legal to block. Even if it's clear that the player's intent was to lay out the QB regardless of the result of the pass, this isn't a situation where we need to judge intent.

He hit him from behind, so even if the RTP was incorrect, it was an illegal block. The end result was we misenforced the foul by 5 yards, and I gave the wrong signal and explanation.

Are you SURE it was in the back???

"I believe there IS a foul here. At worst, it is an illegal block or holding (if tackled; but I think he was hit)."

Sounds like you did not see the whole thing.

REPLY: I believe that the Packer in question was Charles Martin--obviously not the sharpest knife in the drawer to be doing it right in front of Markbreit!

Mike: he was hit from behind, and I saw the whole thing, which is why I missed the interception.

The "I think" was meant to imply "it was my opinion" rather than "I could have sworn I saw him hit from behind, but I'm not 100% sure." The reason I stated it as I did was that you can obviously hit, push, or "block" a player to tackle him, but what was done was not a tackle in the ordinary sense.