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: Plenty of postseason pylon puzzlers. 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: Pylon puzzlers
For high-absurdity no-touch touchdowns, can anything top this gem from Week 17 displayed on our home page? Here Minnesota’s Jordan Addison gets a shadow of the ball over an outside corner of a fully out-of-bounds pylon as he soars wide of the end zone, never coming close to touching it. Yet somehow this means he gets six points.
Compare that to the pylon flyover executed by New England’s Marcus Jones at the end of his interception return vs. the Texans during a divisional round game. It’s at the top (appropriately) of our postseason recap of the 12 games played so far.
We also invite you to visit our Film Room and view our latest compilation clip, the Top 5 Worst Touchdowns of the 2025 Regular Season. It’s a five-pack of clown logic. Plus, as Super Bowl LX nears, our Film Room also presents a sampler of airspace touchdowns from the first 59 championship games.
Finally, our recap of Week 18, the final week of the NFL’s regular season, includes a sampler of pylon follies showcased during the latter stages of the college bowl season. How the public blithely accepts these rulings as somehow sensible leaves us dizzy in disbelief.
Thanks for visiting.
Video and game image: Netflix
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.