NFL 2017 Pick'em League!

[Tiberius]

This is a great angle showing the ball coming out as it hits the ground. Anyone want to argue he has "control" there?

https://streamable.com/occjw

I saw the same video, he did have control while he crossed the end zone line. He was over a foot in when that happen. Otherwise all those other plays we see where a guy extends around the cone with one hand should not count either.

Ignore the end zone line, it's irrelevant. He wasn't established as a runner, so crossing the goal line doesn't end the play. Instead, for that to be a touchdown, he had to catch the ball.

Now, the rules state the following:

If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball until after his initial contact with the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete.

OK, so he's in the act of catching the ball, and he's going to the ground. He maintains control of the ball all the way down, however as his hands hit the ground, so does the ball, and it comes loose. You can clearly see this in the video, as his left hand ends up on top of the ball, upside down (i.e. instead of having the ball in his left hand grip, he has it against the back of his left hand). Since the ball touches the ground during this, the final sentence I quoted above applies: the pass is incomplete.

The difference between this and plays where a guy extends around the cone are two-fold: 1) if the player has already established himself as a runner, all he needs to do is break the plane, what happens after is irrelevant. 2) if the player extends out with one hand, lands, and the ball is still secured (i.e. it doesn't come loose, it doesn't hit the ground, etc.) then it's a catch.

We can argue about whether the NFL catch rule is a good one or not (I don't think it is, most people would call that a catch), but going by the wording of the rule, the refs made the right call after the review.