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Tuck Rule Hard to Grasp
The tuck rule's most infamous play: Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) fumbles in a playoff game in 2002 against the Raiders, but the play is reviewed and then overturned. "It makes no sense to me," Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs said.
(By Elise Amendola -- Associated Press)
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The rule is troubling to many around the league because it seems to contradict what even the participants in the play think has happened. Brady seemed to have halted his throwing motion before he lost the ball, and reacted afterward as if he'd fumbled. The same was true of Plummer last weekend.
But the problem that competition committee members have faced is trying to come up with a new rule that doesn't create more problems than it solves, and doesn't rely on having officials attempt to determine a quarterback's intent.
"We tried several different ways to change it," Newsome said. "But every time we tried to rewrite it, what we came up with was too difficult to officiate."
Pereira said there might not be a way to craft a version of the rule that would be more palatable to coaches, players and fans. "To this point, we haven't been able to come up with one," he said. "A lot of very bright minds on the competition committee have discussed it. But you don't change a rule just to change a rule. You have to change it to a rule that you can officiate."
Pereira said the rule comes up in games about 12 to 15 times per season and the application of it usually is clear-cut -- although not always as "obvious," he said, as it was last weekend on the Plummer play.
"To me, it makes it an easy rule to call," Pereira said. "There's no gray area. It's black and white. There was absolutely no question in the mind of the official last weekend when he got into the replay booth that he had a tuck rule."
Referee Peter Morelli used an instant-replay review Sunday to reverse the original ruling of a fumble by Plummer (which the quarterback recovered in his own end zone for what would have been a safety for the Redskins) and, based on the tuck rule, call the third-quarter play an incomplete pass. Pereira said it has been suggested to him that Plummer should have received an intentional-grounding penalty if the play indeed was an incomplete pass. But, according to Pereira, it wasn't intentional grounding because Plummer lost the ball inadvertently, not intentionally.
Newsome said the competition committee still reconsiders the tuck rule occasionally, but he has been given no indication that members will make another attempt after this season to come up with an alternative.
"I haven't gotten anything yet that would indicate it's going to be a topic this year," Newsome said. "But that could change. There are 12 weeks left" in the regular season.
