MIN@CIN: The wave and the whiff

The absence of logic behind football’s break-the-plane rule can’t get much more confounding than this:

With less than a minute left in the fourth quarter and Cincinnati trailing 24-17, Bengals’ QB Jake Browning, retreating from a heavy rush, lobs a jump ball toward the front corner of the end zone.

Wide receiver Tee Higgins snags it at the 1 and, while being wrestled out of bounds by Minnesota CB Akayleb Evans, shrewdly swings his arm toward the end zone and whips the ball a few inches above the 18-inch pylon.

This action, rule makers long ago somehow decided, is worthy of six points. But should it be? Higgins is a yard short of the goal line. Neither he nor the ball makes contact with the end zone. 

Yet the ball’s vapor trail that was created inches above the pylon by Higgins’ one-armed swing and a whiff is considered touchdown-worthy. This gives the Bengals a game-tying touchdown with 39 seconds left. They eventually win with a field goal in overtime.

Why does the game, a contact sport, permit such a rule to exist? It makes no-touch touchdowns possible. For a game with so many demanding standards of play, this rule sets a frustratingly low bar for scoring. Hocus Bogus Rating: 5

ATL@CAR: Another wave and a whiff

Why bother, Atlanta’s Cordarrelle Patterson must be thinking, taking the risk of coming near would-be tacklers if he can just run wide of the end and simply wave the ball in its airspace and earn six points the easy way? 

The break-the-plane run makes shortcuts such as this possible and cheapens the requirement to enter the end zone, football’s designated scoring area. If mountain climbers simply wave their ice axes over a peak’s high point but never bother to stand on it, have they actually summited the mountain? We would say no. And we say no to this being a genuine touchdown. Rating: 4.5

PIT@IND: Don’t mind that fumble

While attempting to sneak into the end zone from the 1, Pittsburgh’s Mitch Trubisky has the ball ripped from his hands by resourceful Indianapolis linebacker E.J. Speed (45).

Trubisky never steps on or over the goal line with the ball in his possession, yet he is handed six points because he momentarily broke the Great Invisible Plane a split-second before he fumbled the ball. So he gets credit for a touchdown and Speed’s efforts amount to nothing. That does not seem right on any level. Rating: 4.5