SEA@KC: Defying gravity and logic

Fans love Patrick Mahomes and his freestyle approach to the game, and they’re itching to see what trick he’ll come up with next. Everyone wants to watch it, and no one wants something stupid, like logic, to mess it up.

So when Mahomes made this Superman lunge at the pylon and barely grazed its outside edge with the ball, refs did not negate the moment. They signaled touchdown, a weirdly correct call. Thus Mahomes’ legend grew, and common sense took another gut punch. Oof.

As Fox analyst Mark Sanchez points out, “as long as you tap that pylon on any side,” it’s a touchdown. Here is how the 2023 NFL Rulebook (and the wording was the same in the 2022 version) explains the league’s rationale in Rule 11 (Scoring), Section 2 (Touchdown), Article 1 (Touchdown Plays):

A touchdown is scored when:

(b) a ball in possession of an airborne runner is on, above, or behind the plane of the goal line, and some part of the ball passed over or inside the pylon

(c) a ball in player possession touches the pylon, provided that, after contact by an opponent, no part of the player’s body, except his hands or feet, struck the ground before the ball touched the pylon

But does that make any sense? As photos in the right column show, pylons, four inches square, are positioned outside the field of play, i.e., out of bounds. That means that portion of the goal line is four inches wider on each side of the field than the end zone. Footballs have a diameter of roughly 6 3/4 inches, so when Mahomes grazed the pylon’s outer edge, the ball in his airborne hand was in out-of-bounds airspace of between four and 10-plus inches. Should that be worth six points?

Not to us. It does not pass the eye test, nor the logic test. And a number of commenters on Twitter that weekend shared our point of view:

If any play defines the need to fix the rule, this is the one. Hocus Bogus rating: 5

JAX@NYJ: One lame leap for mankind

If the break-the-plane (BTP) rule never changes, expect lanky, long-armed dudes such as 6-foot-6 Trevor Lawrence to perform this lame leap-reach-and-recoil maneuver for their entire careers.

And why not? This play makes it clear Lawrence has learned that just momentarily poking the ball into the end zone’s ether is a much, much easier way to collect six points than trying to bust through the line and make contact with the end zone while executing an actual football play.

Even better: You can fumble the ball before you’re ruled down, as happens on this dreadful-looking play, and get credit for a touchdown instead of a turnover. 

What a bonus! He may consider doing this again in the future. Wait — he did! Just three weeks later, in the AFC Wild Card round against the Chargers, he leaped and laughed to an ugly two-point conversion late in the game — two points that proved pivotal to the game’s outcome. What a country. Rating: 5

Trevor Lawrence attempts what gymnasts would call a front pike maneuver.   Amazon

How it should be done: Ezekiel Elliott

Maybe you think the hotheads behind this website are just a bunch of never-satisfied whiners. Not true. We love the game, and we love decisive, hard-earned, no-doubt touchdowns — like this one from former Cowboy Ezekiel Elliott against Atlanta during Week 16. Applause meter: 4.5

Meeting the in-bounds end zone challenge

Check out the work Dallas WR Michael Gallup puts in to make sure both feet make full in-bounds contact with the end zone. Acrobatic, turf-touching effort is required from receivers in order to be awarded a touchdown. Why not other ball carriers? This and many plays like it make a dainty, no-touch airspace leap such as the one by Trevor Lawrence (see above) seem so frivolously inadequate and, by comparison, wholly unworthy of six points. Applause meter: 5