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Week 5 Preview: Let’s Talk About Tackle-Eligible Touchdowns, the Cowboys’ Collapse Is on Both Sides of the Ball

Also, the need to implement “sky judge” yesterday, and why the league office shouldn’t be dropping the hammer on anyone for breaking COVID protocols. Plus, musical guest: Van Halen!

Gary Gramling

1a. Let’s start this week’s column with… a Video Daily Double [pew-pew, pew-pew, pew-pew, pew-pew, pew pew pew]

Those “pew-pews” are the Jeopardy Daily Double sound effect, but more on that later.* Right now, it’s time for a frank and honest discussion about tackle-eligible touchdowns. Start by watching this breakdown of the Eric Fisher TD from two Monday ago:

I love Dan Orlovsky. In fact, from what I can tell, everyone loves Dan Orlovsky, and rightfully so: great analyst, great enthusiasm, UConn alum, what’s not to love? But this reaction is like Criss Angel just freaked his mind** when in fact it’s just an NFL team stretching some poorly conceived rules that are ripe for exploitation. Or, to use much harsher language: procedural shenanigans.

NFL Week 5 Preview
USA Today (4)

To give defenses a fair fight in a league that’s already heavily skewed against them, they must be given a reasonable chance to discern which five of their opponents are eligible receivers. That’s not the case on a play like this. Here’s how an otherwise ineligible receiver becomes eligible, as you may or may not know: He must get the referee’s attention and wave across his chest, at which point the referee will do what’s, in technical terms … “something” to confirm eligibility has been granted. And then most of the time—but not all of the time—it is announced over the P.A. Many will argue that the announcement is suffice to inform the defense, but with the play clock running most defenders are communicating with the sideline and with each other to get their own call in. It’s more than a little silly to expect them to also direct their attention to whatever is coming over the P.A. between renditions of “Cotton-Eyed Joe.”

And, of course, there are times when the offense can’t even be sure who’s eligible. It happened to the Ravens a couple year ago, when John Urschel thought he had reported as eligible but, apparently not. The Ravens were flagged for an illegal formation. The explanation from then-VP of Officiating Dean Blandino was that Urschel thought he had Torbert’s attention, but apparently he didn’t. As Florio noted at the time: “[…] it sounds like [Blandino is] saying the Ravens bear blame for the penalty because Urschel didn’t pause for Torbert to give him a thumbs up or a nod or something that equates to the referee saying ‘copy’ or ‘roger’ or ‘over.’”

It’s an absurd system, though it does allow me to run this Simpsons clip featuring what I consider to be indispensable advice from Milhouse:

So in the case of the Fisher TD, the Chiefs did everything they could to obscure Fisher asking for eligibility, the Ravens apparently missed the announcement and, not surprisingly, confusion reigned for the defense. For the Chiefs, the play is all within the rules, even if it’s not the most, shall we say “sporting” touchdown Patrick Mahomes will ever throw.

Earlier in the same game, they got a shovel-pass TD to fullback Anthony Sherman on a wonderful design. Look at this:

The misdirection! The sleight of hand! This is like the end of Usual Suspects—Anthony Sherman was Keyzer Söze the whole time, right there in front of Kujan. On the Fisher TD, that was like the alternate ending of Usual Suspects where Kujan sees the fax come through and goes, “Huh, I’ve never seen this person,” takes a sip out of his mug then goes to the fridge to get some non-dairy creamer. Roll credits.

I swear to you, dear reader, I like when offensive linemen catch passes. It’s wacky! Like when quarterbacks throw blocks, or kickers tackle return men, or the pretzel guy gives you nachos. I’d like to see a world where we can all feel good about very large men catching touchdown passes (rather than everyone except me). And the fix is so easy: You know how when, after a late substitution, the umpire comes in like he’s going to pounce on the ball like it’s an active grenade in an orphanage in order to allow the defense a chance to counter-substitute? Just do that, but in this case, while you’re holding up the snap point out the eligible receiver who is wearing an ineligible number. At that point, you’ll have the defense’s undivided attention.

1b. The last thing left on my bucket list (I’ve already beaten Soda Popinski in Punch-Out and seen Gordon Lightfoot live. It was a short list): Host a Netflix standup special titled “Procedural Shenanigans.” Though I’m not going to do standup, just watch All-22 film and scoff derisively for 46 minutes.

* —I don’t actually have anything “more” on the Video Daily Double sound effect. That’s kinda on you though; what else would I possibly write about it?

** — Make no mistake, Criss Angel will freak your mind.

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2. At the quarter-mark of the 2020 season, Dak Prescott is on a pace for a campaign that rivals the likes of 1983 Bill Kenney, 2010 Matt Schaub and 2015 Blake Bortles when it comes to a combination of passing yards and team losses. With that in mind, a discussion of complementary football.

The Cowboys were going to be bad defensively in 2020. They let a premium player in Byron Jones walk, didn’t invest in their secondary, brought in a defensive coordinator with a vastly different approach than the long-time defensive staff he replaced and had limited time to learn that new system. And—not to belabor the point but, come on—ignored the importance of a premium man-cover corner like Jones in aforementioned system.

Four games into the season, the back seven’s play has been defined by a lack of speed to the ball, lack of physicality tackling and working through traffic, lack of effort, and lack of communication before and after the snap. But, even worse for a struggling unit, they’ve been on the field a ton. Through four games, the Cowboys defense has been on the field for a little less than 34 minutes per game, second-most in the league in front of only Houston (35:45). They have three players who have already logged 299 defensive snaps—Jaylon Smith, Xavier Woods and rookie Trevon Diggs (only Bobby Wagner, at 304, has played more). Joe Thomas, who was supposed to see limited action behind Smith and Leighton Vander Esch, has already logged 276 snaps. For context, Stats Inc. has snap counts going back to 2012, and the most snaps played by a defensive player in a season since ’12 was Malcolm Jenkins, with 1,213 in 2015. (That was Chip Kelly’s last season, and you might remember one of the criticisms of Kelly’s system being that he was killing his defense with all the short, uptempo possessions that left them on the field. Smith, Woods and Diggs are all on pace for 1,196.)

That Cowboys defense has been out there a lot in part because they can’t get off the field. This unit has one takeaway on the season, and that was only because DK Metcalf forgot that football fields are 100 yards. But the defense is also out there a lot because the offense doesn’t stay out there a lot.

Despite not turning the ball over in the opener in L.A., the Cowboys are tied with the Eagles with a league-high nine giveaways on the season. Six of them have come in the first half (there was also an ill-fated fake punt in Week 2 that was essentially a turnover). And six of those turnovers are lost fumbles, which, except for one at the end of a long Ezekiel Elliott run, have meant the field has not flipped at all after the change of possession. All those early turnovers lead to short fields and easier points, and that means the Cowboys offense is playing from behind. Playing from behind means the offense is playing fast—they’re tied with Houston for the fewest five-minute drives in the league (two).

The long-term good news is that the fumble issues should dry up. The Cowboys have never lost more than nine in a season during the Dak era, and while teams are typically expected to recover around 50% of their fumbles, the Cowboys are 1-for-7. Plus, after single-blocking Myles Garrett with an undrafted rookie last week, just wait until their offensive staff will learns they are allowed to block one guy with two players.

The short-term good news is they host the Giants this Sunday. And while perhaps Jason Garrett is doing some good work with Daniel Jones behind the scenes, Big Blue’s offensive designs and play-calls suggest a team disinterested in things like first downs and points. This is a great opportunity for the Cowboys offense to put together some lengthy drives, and for the defense to look like an NFL-caliber unit.

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3a. Thursday night served as a reminder of two things: (1) Thursday Night Football is an affront to NFL teams, their players, their coaches, their staffs and their fans, and (2) “Sky judge” should be implemented immediately, starting with Sunday’s games.

This week’s TNF was, as it often is, a mess—two teams that were prepared neither physically (particularly in the case of the injury-plagued Bucs) nor mentally, but also an officiating crew that seemed utterly overwhelmed throughout the night.

I’d like to highlight two game-altering calls from Bears-Bucs, along with the FOX booth’s commentary. The first is the aftermath of a flag thrown on Kyle Fuller for a hit on KeShawn Vaughn late in the second quarter. If the call stood, the Bucs would have had first-and-10 at their own 40 with 91 seconds and two timeouts left in the first half. But the officials got together and picked up the flag—correctly!—giving the Bears a turnover and a first down at the Bucs’ 27 instead. As Joe Buck was heard to remark: “That is a good job by this crew, and they also waited long enough to get the look at it up on the big screen here at Soldier Field.”

There were a boatload of missed calls and phantom penalties scattered throughout this game, but we’ll fast-forward to 3:58 left in the game, after a failed third-and-19 conversion attempt by the Bears. Referee Alex Kemp had thrown a roughing the passer flag on Shaquil Barrett for what was clearly not an infraction. This time apparently none of the officials saw a replay—however, the entirety of the game’s viewing audience, within seconds, saw multiple replays showing the undeniable absence of an action that would warrant a roughing penalty. After Buck, Troy Aikman and Mike Pereira took turns weighing in on the abject awfulness of the call, a resigned Aikman added: “I understand it, these officials, they’ve gotta call it in real-time and as they see it. They don’t get the benefit of going back and taking a look at it in slow-motion.” Who did have the benefit of going back and looking at it multiple times before the next play? The entirety of the game’s viewership.

This is the choice the NFL made when they once again declined to add sky judge. Anyone sitting on their couch is better equipped to officiate a game than the seven officials on the field. And sky judge is perfect for football because you have ample time to review almost any play due to the fact that there’s a break built in between every play, and the break is even longer when there’s a penalty to be announced.

On Thursday night, the pertinent information on the erroneous roughing the passer call could easily have been relayed to referee Alex Kemp—via in-game communication system, via phone call, via text, via attractive young person on TikTok—before the next play would have been run, and well before Kemp announced his call and humiliated himself and his ancestors in front of the football world.

With the continued emphasis on player safety, there’s now an instinct built in with most officials to throw a knee-jerk flag at any particularly violent hit, whether or not the hit fell outside the letter of the law. This isn’t the first time a phantom call like this has been made, and it won’t be the last… until Sky Judge is implemented to review those calls during the built-in break between every play.

As for the aftermath on Thursday, Chicago would have been punting the ball from their own 16, but instead the drive continued from their 31 before punting from the 33. There’s no way of knowing how the game would have played out if the phantom roughing flag was picked up (what with the butterfly effect and all, perhaps Tony Kemp’s atrocious call prevented a chain reaction of events that would have ended in nuclear holocaust). But ultimately, if you want to administrate the game properly, you need to use the tools that are already available to everyone watching it.

3b. To be clear, Tom Brady didn’t lose track of downs. He’s using that to distract from the fact that he didn’t check out of the run against this front at the start of the Bucs’ four-minute offense when protecting a two-point lead late:

Bears defense shows a 9-man box vs. the Bucs
Brady surveys the field as the entire population of metropolitan Chicago lines up in the box on first down

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4. We’re all so mad at the Titans, and I’m right there with you: Each and every member of the organization should be dropped into the shark-infested mouth of an active volcano.

What you need to consider is—What’s that? You’d cover the sharks in fire-retardant gel. Anyway, back to the main point, when it comes to the league’s COVID protoc—I mean, you’re not going to have forever. You get the sharks in there, hustle to get the Titans players, coaches and staff in, and the window of time is enough to get the sharks back out. I’m not saying it won’t be expensive, but this is clearly the only way to handle it. Unless…

When it comes to COVID protocols, the league ceded the higher ground the moment they allowed the Titans to go to Minnesota after two positive tests in their building. If I put some flattened cardboard and a boombox in the middle of the street in front of my house and invite my preschooler out for some old-fashioned break dancing between the passing cars, I can’t really bring the hammer down when I wake up the next morning and he’s popping-and-locking among the Geo Metros. The Titans have to reap what they sow—probably a hefty fine and maybe a lost draft pick—but so does the league.

If you want to prevent the spread of COVID, when a team has a positive test in their building they’re shut down for two weeks. Anything less than that, you’re not convincing anyone that you’re taking it seriously.

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5. Ladies and gentlemen . . . Van Halen!

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Gary Gramling
GARY GRAMLING

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