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As for today, I hate the NFL rulebook. To be fair, I think it hates itself as well. It takes winding roads in ways that would surprise no one, but it's also why clear answers are rare to come by for why something was called the way it was. When Josh Allen was credited with a receiving touchdown, I needed to know why.
Spoiler, it can get boiled down to, "well, it just does," according to the rules. That said, when Josh Allen made us all take note of receiving touchdowns in the Buffalo Bills 2024 game against the San Francisco 49ers, it created a moment that's worth diving into and what I realized is we (universally) discussed it all wrong. We'll get into that. Hope you enjoy.
As for today, I hate the NFL rulebook. To be fair, I think it hates itself as well. It takes winding roads in ways that would surprise no one, but it's also why clear answers are rare to come by for why something was called the way it was. When Josh Allen was credited with a receiving touchdown, I needed to know why.
Spoiler, it can get boiled down to, "well, it just does," according to the rules. That said, when Josh Allen made us all take note of receiving touchdowns in the Buffalo Bills 2024 game against the San Francisco 49ers, it created a moment that's worth diving into and what I realized is we (universally) discussed it all wrong. We'll get into that. Hope you enjoy.
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SportsTranscript
00:00God damn it.
00:00That's not, that's not useful.
00:03That's like, honestly, like this hasn't been confusing
00:06as much as it has been annoying.
00:08Exactly.
00:09And I think-
00:10Just don't make that rule then.
00:11On occasion, we witnessed something in sports
00:13that everybody recognizes is awesome,
00:16but we simultaneously are not positive what we witnessed.
00:19We're used to everything, plays, results, athletes,
00:22all falling into clean categories for us
00:25to be able to know how to think about them.
00:27When that isn't the case,
00:28we are left in a collective confusion,
00:30often because something was unique or just very cool.
00:34You know what's also cool?
00:35We have a Patreon.
00:37Please check it out.
00:38You'll get something every Monday,
00:40episodes of Pretty Good, our podcast,
00:42and lots of other stuff.
00:44Right now, this is what we're here for.
00:47This is the unique, this is the cool.
00:50Did y'all watch this?
00:51Yes, I'll tell you right now,
00:52I know how to categorize this,
00:54and it was me almost single-handedly
00:56winning my fantasy game of this particular week
01:00by having Josh Allen on my roster for this play.
01:03How does fantasy deal with this?
01:05We should explain what it is first,
01:06but come back to that, please.
01:08That is a big part of it.
01:10Why I wanna dive into this further,
01:12everyone was a little surprised
01:13with how it gets officially scored,
01:16and I couldn't find anyone explaining
01:18why the scoring works as it does.
01:22Take us through what we're actually, yeah.
01:23I didn't actually watch this game,
01:24so I would love to know more specifically what happened.
01:27So this took place second half,
01:29Bills, 49ers, Bills are blowing out San Francisco.
01:33It's kind of the play
01:35that made the entire game worth watching.
01:37Josh Allen completes a pass to Amari Cooper.
01:40Amari Cooper catches it around the five, the four.
01:4249ers swarm him, but Josh Allen is right behind the play.
01:46Amari Cooper sees him, tosses the ball backwards,
01:49who runs it in seven yards out for a touchdown.
01:52The answer to how you score this
01:55is Josh Allen was credited with a passing
01:56and a receiving touchdown.
01:59As soon as that came out,
02:00everyone was like, oh, that's wild.
02:02And this makes him the third quarterback in NFL history
02:05to catch his own pass for a touchdown.
02:08It's a give and go.
02:09It's a basketball play, but in football.
02:11The very first time this happened was in 1997.
02:15So it took a while.
02:16Brad Johnson did it against the Vikings in 97.
02:19Marcus Mariota was the second person to ever do it.
02:21It took another 20, 21 years.
02:23Mariota did it in the playoffs.
02:25This is far more majestic than either of those.
02:29Like, can picture those guys being just honored
02:32watching this and hearing them being compared
02:34to Josh Allen soaring through the air in the snow,
02:38angels singing, children sobbing tears of joy.
02:43And this is specifically touchdowns, right?
02:45This is not just receiving your own pass.
02:47This is receiving your own pass
02:48and then taking it in for a touchdown.
02:50Yeah, so other quarterbacks have caught their own passes
02:53to most interesting that I found were
02:56Brett Favre's first career completion was to himself.
03:01Wow. That's cool.
03:02And so was CJ Stroud's.
03:04This play is different from all of those moments.
03:06On paper, he didn't catch his own pass.
03:09Correct.
03:09Did any of these people catch their own pass?
03:12So in the stats, Josh Allen has zero receptions
03:16for seven receiving yards and one receiving touchdown.
03:19Right.
03:20If you go back and look at Marcus Mariota,
03:21if you go back and look at Brad Johnson,
03:23they have four receiving yards,
03:26one touchdown and a reception.
03:29My brain decided to go through the entire NFL rule book
03:31to basically try to find the language
03:33that they use to prop this up,
03:35but it boils down to only one player can catch a pass.
03:39Makes sense?
03:40Sure.
03:40If the pass goes for a touchdown,
03:43you have a passing touchdown.
03:45Therefore you need a receiving touchdown.
03:47The NFL breaks down what goes into a play.
03:50Sorry, a down.
03:52Yeah.
03:53My brain is like, this took place on a play.
03:55There were three plays within this down.
03:59God damn it.
04:00There was a passing play, there was a running play,
04:03and then there was a second running play.
04:06Which they should just call that
04:07special teams at that point.
04:08Right.
04:09And so I think that's where a lot of the confusion
04:11comes in of like, why give him a receiving touchdown?
04:14He doesn't have a catch.
04:16The NFL just needs to have a receiving touchdown
04:19if there is a passing touchdown.
04:20Why?
04:21Or like, what's gonna happen?
04:23Y2K?
04:24For real, like, why do they need that?
04:26We can't have this.
04:28Or all the computers will go down.
04:30Diving into this one step further.
04:32I think this is where you can get real confused over it.
04:35So the NFL defines a passing play
04:37from the moment the ball is snapped back
04:40to the moment that the pass is finished.
04:44Whether it being completed or whether it is incomplete.
04:48Yeah.
04:49If it's completed and the play is still going on,
04:51the passing play stops there and it becomes a running play.
04:55When Josh Allen threw the ball to Amari Cooper,
04:58as soon as Amari Cooper caught it and had possession,
05:00the passing play stopped.
05:02A running play began by what the rules state.
05:05The running play lasted until he successfully pitched
05:11the ball back to Josh Allen.
05:13When Josh Allen had possession, a new running play began.
05:17But not a passing play.
05:18Not a passing play.
05:19Not a forward pass.
05:21Of which you can only have one.
05:23Bingo.
05:24There can be an infinite number of running plays
05:27within the down, but there can always
05:28only be one passing play.
05:30God damn it.
05:31That's not useful.
05:33Honestly, this hasn't been confusing
05:36as much as it has been annoying.
05:38Exactly.
05:39Just don't make that rule then.
05:41Genuinely, I think that is the NFL rule book.
05:43So much of this comes down to semantics.
05:45Because that's not really a rule.
05:46It's a record keeping structure.
05:48Right, the rule book itself doesn't
05:49spell out this situation.
05:51The only place that does is they put out
05:53a supplemental PDF for statisticians
05:57to know how to score each different.
05:59Well, no, everybody's gotta do that.
06:01Every sport has to have this is what an assist is
06:04in basketball because that doesn't matter for the game.
06:08That's a glossary.
06:09It matters for the scorekeeper.
06:10In the NBA, which I can refer to most easily,
06:13so if there's a turnover, that's not really
06:15anyone's fault, it's just a team turnover.
06:17So can't you just have like,
06:19the Bills scored a touchdown,
06:20or Josh Allen gets credit for it,
06:22but it doesn't get slotted into any particular category.
06:25I think bonuses are a good reason for it.
06:28I think betting is the ultimate reason for it.
06:31Going back to your point of you can only have
06:33one passing play within a down,
06:35that is why on this play, Amari Cooper gets a reception,
06:38Josh Allen does not get a reception
06:40despite getting receiving yards.
06:42My belief is that we are thinking
06:46about this play incorrectly.
06:48Marcus Mariota had a catch.
06:50Brad Johnson had a catch.
06:52Brett Favre, reception, CJ Stroud, reception,
06:54all these other quarterbacks,
06:55all of those came on plays where the ball
06:58was deflected back towards them.
06:59This play is not like Marcus Mariota's touchdown,
07:04it's not like Brad's.
07:05It's not like those other plays.
07:07I think it needs to be compared to like,
07:09Culpepper through to Randy Moss.
07:11Randy Moss had just an absolutely absurd lateral
07:16to Mo Williams, who then scored the touchdown.
07:20That's what this play was,
07:21it just happened to be in the snow,
07:23close enough to the goal line
07:24where Josh Allen would come up there.
07:26A quarterback sturdy enough to be like,
07:28yeah, I can come help block,
07:30and that's why he was in the vicinity,
07:31to get the lateral, to then run it in.
07:34They are in the same family,
07:37but we just, this is the first time
07:39we have seen this version of it play out,
07:41which I think adds to the general brain melt.
07:44Wait, why is that a receiving touchdown?
07:46Why does Josh Allen have reception yards
07:49if we're saying that reception starts and ends
07:52with him throwing the ball
07:53and Amari Cooper catching the ball?
07:54Why isn't this just a rushing touchdown?
07:56That's ultimately the question.
07:58So, I asked Alex Rubenstein about this
08:01because I wanted to just vet that
08:03I was thinking about this correctly.
08:05He's still alive, to be clear.
08:07He's alive, but he lives up in the clouds, yeah.
08:09And it really is as simple as the NFL is dumb.
08:12If you have a pass, you have a reception.
08:14I don't think there should be
08:15a passing touchdown on the play.
08:16That's interesting.
08:17It's fully a rush.
08:18Yeah, I think that's the-
08:20There was a pass and a completion, period.
08:22Then there was a rushing touchdown.
08:24I don't think this is that hard to put to paper,
08:27unless you've already built a protocol
08:29that rejects this input.
08:32If I were to read that back to you,
08:33you had never seen this, and I read to you,
08:35Josh Allen passed to Amari Cooper for X number of yards,
08:39and then Josh Allen scored a rushing touchdown.
08:41I think you might be able to imagine
08:43what happened on the play.
08:44Josh Allen caught his own pass.
08:46No, he didn't.
08:47What I said did happen.
08:48To throw a point in your favor,
08:52the passing play ended once he had possession.
08:55Once pass was complete.
08:58Yes, he became a runner.
08:59That signified the start of a running play.
09:02If he had lateraled it back to Josh Allen
09:04before the ball could ever hit the ground,
09:05a 49-year player caught that.
09:07That would be a fumble, right?
09:08Sure, but if the passing touchdown
09:11needs to have a receiving touchdown,
09:14then one could also semantically make an argument
09:18for them to call that an interception.
09:19Right, so the fallacy is in that original assumption.
09:22But because it's backwards pass versus forward pass,
09:25da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
09:26But then reject the premise
09:28is what I'm asking the NFL to do.
09:30A passing, actually, no.
09:32I reject both halves of it.
09:34There was neither a passing
09:36nor a receiving touchdown on this play.
09:38There was a pass and there was a reception,
09:40but the touchdown was all on foot.
09:41It was a rushing touchdown.
09:43At the end of the day, I don't think people care.
09:45It's a passing league.
09:47The NFL has reason to say,
09:49oh, Josh Allen had 50 touchdowns passing this year,
09:53so let's make sure we can help out
09:55quarterback numbers that way, whatever.
09:57I think the most realistic version of all of this
10:00is they're just like, the first play was a passing play,
10:02therefore everything that comes next
10:05will be receiving instead of rushing.
10:07And then let's just forget about it.
10:09I don't think there's another sport
10:10that is as confused about itself as football.
10:13I agree with that.
10:15Again, when I was talking to Alex,
10:16he pointed out, he was like,
10:17the closest thing in his mind that relates to this
10:20is a player in basketball puts the ball into his own net.
10:26And so they score that point to who?
10:28Guy?
10:29The closest offensive.
10:30But yeah, if I'm playing defense
10:31and I accidentally tip the ball into the basket,
10:33they just give it to the closest offensive player.
10:35And so it's like, all right, cool.
10:36That's clean, that's easy,
10:38but it's also a very basic fundamental concept.
10:42What if you have two dudes who are equidistant?
10:44I don't think they need to do that.
10:45Again, I think points can sometimes
10:47just not belong to a specific person.
10:49Take them off of the box score of the guy who put it in.
10:52Minus two points.
10:53You can do, actually, you can do that too.
10:55That would be cool.
10:56Screw up, like-
10:57They should do that for own goals.
11:00The John Boyce of 100 years from now
11:02would look back at the box score and be like,
11:03I think they misscored this.
11:05I'm like, no, idiot.
11:06Can I show you a very fun example of this?
11:10Yes, please.
11:11Okay, so this is Lightning versus Capitals.
11:13Puck going back towards Charlie Lindgren,
11:15right into his own net.
11:16Wait, this is a 3-3 game as well.
11:19So yeah, that goal gave the Lightning a 4-3 lead.
11:22That gave Brayden Point of the Lightning a hat trick.
11:26It's most recent player to have touched it
11:29from the opposing team.
11:30Oh, okay.
11:30Soccer jumps to mind,
11:32because they're just like flat out like,
11:34own goal, here's who did it.
11:36That's Rocket League rules.
11:38This is one of the most Rocket League moments
11:40in sports that I can think of.
11:41It's extremely Rocket League.
11:43That's a wrong button moment.
11:44Yeah, yes.
11:45He jumped.
11:46Do you know how many times I've played Rocket League
11:49where if I had just stayed and done absolutely nothing?
11:52That is that.
11:53That's exactly what happened.
11:54If I had stayed and done nothing,
11:55there would have been no goal,
11:56but because I did my weird little like,
12:00and I jumped in exactly the right place
12:02to help my opponent score.
12:04When the NHL learns what Rocket League is
12:07five years from now,
12:08they're gonna love this reference.
12:09Oh, they're gonna love it.
12:09Yeah, they're gonna love it.
12:16Hey, thanks for watching this reframe
12:18and a special thanks to all of our top secret agents
12:20over on Patreon.
12:22If you wanna join the ranks,
12:23click the link in the top right
12:24to check out what we're cooking up over there.
12:26You'll get first look at episodes of Pretty Good.
12:28You'll get our podcast, The Annex.
12:30We've also got plenty of other stuff for you.
12:31Football, not football.
12:33The world's your oyster.
12:34I've never understood that saying
12:36and refuse to look it up.
12:37Please let me know in the comments.
12:39I appreciate you being smarter than me.