For the love of logic, put the touch back in touchdown
It’s a contact sport. Yet players can score without contacting the end zone. Why is that?
News Desk: Pylons on parade (Week 12). See below.
All of these plays were ruled touchdowns. Yet never did the ball or ball carrier touch the end zone. Since 2020, fans have witnessed this more than 350 times.
Clockwise from top left: NBC Sports, Fox Sports, CBS Sports. Fox Sports
Airspace touchdowns 1) occur too often (almost 1 in every 4 games), 2) are farcical to watch, and 3) diminish the game we love. Fans deserve better.
Fix the Rule News: These are touchdowns?
Week 12 brought us a handful of new pylon pokes to once again confound the logic genome in our systems, yet our home page continues to showcase what we believe might be the ugliest of all airspace touchdowns in 2025 — the exasperatingly illogical pylon plunge by George Kittle during Week 10.
Kudos to Kittle for gaming the system and using the “goal line extended” interpretation to his advantage. Why the rules allow a ball carrier to completely avoid the end zone and gouge a pylon — which is entirely, fully, 100 percent out of bounds — to collect six points is simply dumbfounding. While we admire Kittle’s acrobatic effort, is the play worthy of being ruled a touchdown?
We say no. Make that no way. No way in 100 years. Yet that’s the rule.
Does that make sense to you?
Take a look at our Week 12 recap and our Film Room and judge for yourself.
Video and game image: Fox Sports
What if break-the-plane logic was applied to other games?
Hole in one
The ball is clearly breaking the plane of the cup, so it’s in. Put me down for an ace.
Home run
Who cares if the ball is in the glove? It broke the fence’s plane on the fly.
Bucket
Your corner three rimmed out? Easy. It dipped below the rim, so it’s good.
Cornhole
That bag is breaking the plane of the hole. We’ll take three points.
Ringer
Look, the shoe is breaking the plane of the stake. Three points for me.
Inside Fix the Rule
In brief
What we’re up to, in as few words as we can manage.
Concept
Learn about the Super Bowl touchdown that lit our inquisitive fuse.
New rule
Few rules are perfect, but we say our idea is better than the existing rule.
Pylons
What exactly are these orange foam antennae intended to do?
Ratings
Not all ATDs are equal. The ugliest of them earn The Full McEnroe.