The NFL Could Use Some Less Convoluted Rules

How the Cowboys-Lions call highlights a year full of confusing football

Happy New Year, everybody.

I was talking to a friend the other day who posed our first matter of business this week like so: “Everyone is saying the NFL has an officiating problem. It’s pretty clear they actually just have a rules problem.”

Agreed! I think?

They might have both, but let there be no chicken vs. egg confusion here: officiating only exists to enforce the rules, and even after the NFL’s wayward attempt to justify the eligible receiver call that decided the Cowboys-Lions game this past weekend, I’m not sure I understand it. Not the rule, nor the basis for the rule, nor the way it was applied.

Maybe the Pistons finally winning a game just passed the curse energy back to another Detroit team, because this was an exceedingly strange rule to see in the spotlight.

You mean to tell me that only certain guys are *allowed* to catch the ball? And here I thought I’d been harsh about the over-specialization thing a few weeks ago.

Making that a rule seems a little overboard though, no? So I wanted to find out why it existed.

As I understand them, the rules around eligible/ineligible receivers are meant to prevent two things:

1. The defense having to account for and cover every single offensive player;

2. Convoys of offensive linemen coming way upfield to bulldoze defensive backs.

There’s some sense there, at least in terms of how the modern game is conceived.

On that second point, the NFL doesn’t want 350-pound offensive tackles taking off from the line of scrimmage and leveling the 200-pound free safety with a full head of steam on every play. That’s a safety thing. With you so far.

But it gets fuzzier as we zoom out. If you’ve ever heard a referee call “ineligible man downfield,” that’s what that’s about — you don’t need to catch the ball to be in an illegal position.

Before the ball is thrown, a lineman is only allowed to advance for 5 yards past the line of scrimmage. Anything past that, it’s going to be whistled, unless the pass is behind the line of scrimmage, like a screen play or some kind of pitch to a running back.

If, however, the offensive coordinator were to call a screen, but the quarterback were to see the opposing cornerback in tight coverage, he might decide to hold onto the ball and stall to target another receiver further upfield, all while the lineman thinks he’s clear to keep chugging along. If the lineman doesn’t look to see what happened right after the snap — which is hard, when you’ve got a single-track job to do in terms of blocking an opposing player — the team’s probably going to end up with a penalty from that miscommunication.

My point being: that’s just one situation, and it’s already awfully complicated.

The full rules are way too long and winding to CTRL+V here, but the first few bullets of Rule 8 Section 1 Article 6 (lol) should give you an indication of what the deal is:

“All offensive players other than those identified in Article 5 above are ineligible to catch a legal or illegal forward pass thrown from behind the line of scrimmage, including:

a) Players who are not on either end of their line or at least one yard behind it when the ball is snapped.

b) Offensive players wearing numbers 50–79, unless they have reported a change in their eligibility status to the Referee and have assumed a position on their line or in their backfield as required by Article 5;

c) Players who fail to notify the Referee of being eligible when required…”

Me again — I love so much that the NFL’s link to Article 5 is broken that I’m not even going to fix it. It’s that good.

Basically, this is all meant to ensure that offensive linemen do their offensive linemen job and nothing else. The NFL wants players’ roles to be specific and discrete. The quarterback throws the ball, the receivers catch it, and the linemen block.

These rules exist to “de-clutter” the passing game. It’s the framework for the whole concept of the pass rush and everything that goes with it. It gets those offensive and defensive players almost purely doing those singular things — either trying to reach or protect the quarterback — and keeps them from mucking up play in the open field.

Without them, you’d probably have something more like backyard football. Everybody but the quarterback could go out for a pass, and everyone — except maybe your most aggro friend or relative, who’s doing the “Nom nom nom, sack lunch” thing from Wedding Crashers — would be out in coverage. Hot route!

Now, outside of coastal Maryland, I’m actually not sure that would be a more satisfying version of the sport. At the pro level, I doubt it would be. But what I can say for sure is that it would be much simpler, and thus very different, so much so that I can pretty much guarantee it’ll never happen.

Know Thyself

See, football likes being a convoluted mess. Most of the rules are impenetrable.

Forever and always, don’t ask me what a catch is. I can’t tell you. I also don’t know what a false start is anymore. I only sort of know what a hold is, enough to be pretty sure that I see it from most of the players on every snap. No clue what a delay of game is, considering how often the ball is snapped with 0:00 on the play clock.

I find that last example telling, though, in that game officials seem to be on the same and I think right page. They tend to give it another second. If the ref sees the clock is at 0:00, he’s supposed to look and see whether the ball’s been snapped. As long as they’re not still just sitting there, all good. Play on. They don’t want to call it if they don’t have to.

To me, that’s in the best interest of the game. Penalties make for a bad watch, especially when they materially impact the outcome. Avoiding those calls is the right instinct for officials to have.

What happened in the Cowboys-Lions game is not in the best interest of the game, and it doesn’t say anything great about the officials’ instincts either.

In fairness, it was meant to be confusing to the defense. A different offensive lineman had been reporting earlier throughout the game. There was some trickery going on here, and it seems to have gotten the refs too.

But I personally believe that Lions coach Dan Campbell did what he says he did — took the time to explain the play to the officiating crew before the game started — so I’m at a loss for how it played out.

Shouldn’t we be leaning towards granting players the benefit of the doubt in a murky scenario such as this, given you can clearly see Decker on tape looking right at the official as he reports in as eligible? The referee thought it was a different player who had reported, so when yet another player ended up with the ball, he threw the flag.

What I don’t get is the inability to look at this with humility. It’s needlessly punitive in the first place, and I get the NFL’s decision to later defiantly defend the call even less.

At bottom though, it doesn’t take a multi-part argument to get to why this is all so stupid. The rule is: an offensive lineman must inform the official that he’s reporting as eligible. He did. It’s on the tape. Are we not done here?

Check the billboards, guys. Case closed.

P.S.

What infuriates me in any sport is the arbitrary line between plays/calls that are reviewable versus the ones that are not. We permit ourselves to correct some errors, but not others. It’s well-intentioned — we don’t want to stop the game for every little thing — but it allows for easily fixable stuff like this to live on as fan angst fodder longer than it should.

There’s a wider VR conversation here that takes up a lot of breath and a lot of time in a lot of sports. Somehow baseball has the smallest issue with it, despite the basic gameplay relying the most squarely on an umpire’s (demonstrably poor) judgment.

Other sports, though — including games like soccer, where you wouldn’t think this would come up that often — have seen all kinds of VR drama. In a game that’s largely the opposite of football, where the gameplay is continuous rather than stop-start, you can understand why long stoppages would be a matter of some dispute.

But don’t worry! It really sucks in basketball too. And hockey. And yes, of course, football, so I’m sure we’ll be doing this again sometime soon. Can’t wait.

Also, This

• We finally got an OG Anunoby trade! Poor dude had been the new CJ McCollum for like four years now. Seems like a workable addition to this Knicks team, and just as important, I hope the new Raptors like Toronto. RJ Barrett’s the Canadian prodigal son, so while I’m not enamored with his game, the change of scenery could give him a boost. It’s Immanuel Quickley, though, who I’d most like to see with an opportunity to ball. Thibs was never going to let the guy play enough. This feels like an old-school challenge trade, not some 2027 second-rounder swap like we get these days. I like it!
  

• I’m denying myself a victory lap on the FSU-Georgia blowout based on the fact that Florida State essentially sent a B team to the slaughter. Coach Kirby is (don’t) Smart to point out how ridiculous this is getting. When I can’t gloat in good conscience? We’ve gone too far, America.
  

• As far as predictions gone wrong, I didn’t think Michigan would be in the title game, and I’m still not picking them over Washington, even with my main man Stalions in the crowd. We’ll see how I do there.