Why, you may ask, am I writing about the Tuck Rule play, which happened 15 years ago.

Well, I stumbled across an interview Norman Chad did with NPR last month. I then found another column he’d written on the subject. As a columnist, I like Chad when he’d written for Sports Illustrated. Pretty funny guy, not bad as a poker commentator. But, as many irrational Patriot haters do, he needs a metaphysical smack in the mouth for continuing to drone on about the Tuck Rule. First of all, it was 15 years ago. Secondly, the refs got the call right.

To listen to Patriot haters tell the story, Bill Belichick and Walt Coleman conceived the tuck rule on the sidelines of Foxboro Stadium in the 4th quarter of the 2001 AFC Divisional Playoff Game. It was just one more way that the Patriots could continue their history of screwing over the Raiders (which they didn’t actually have – see Daryl Stingley and Sugar Bear Hamilton).

The Tuck Rule

Of course, NFL rules don’t work that way. The rule was passed by the competition committee in 1999. The Patriots had no representation on the Competition Committee that year. It was co-chaired by Packers coach Mike Holmgren and Buccaneers owner Rich McKay. The biggest rule change wasn’t the tuck rule, which was more of a clarification than a new rule – but the return of instant replay. You know, Norm, getting the call right.

The tuck rule was intended to simplify a judgment call on the part of the referee. If the quarterback’s arm is going forward, and he loses control, it’s an incomplete pass until he brings it back to his body.

NFL Rule 3, Section 22, Article 2, Note 2. When [an offensive] player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement of his arm starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back toward his body. Also, if the player has tucked the ball into his body and then loses possession, it is a fumble.

And Norm may cry out that then NFL changed the rule in 2013. And they did.

Passer Tucks Ball. If the player loses possession of the ball during an attempt to bring it back toward his body, or if the player loses possession after he has tucked the ball into his body, it is a fumble.

The Play

So on the play, Brady wasn’t attempting to bring the ball back to his body when the ball came loose. It’s a judgment call by the refs, but by the current rules, still an incomplete pass. So the refs got the call right.

But let’s leave that aside. According to the rules of the NFL, the refs got the call right. So at this point, Norman, it’s over. You need to man up and go home about this. You might as well complain that the Super Bowl 50 Championship was illicit because the NFL moved the extra point back, and the Patriots miss of an extra point cost them the game. Nobody on the Patriots did that.

That Norman and the rest of the whiny sports public didn’t know the rule didn’t make it illegitimate.

The Real Reason the Raiders Lost

The game, of course, didn’t end on that play. The Patriots were still outside of field goal range after the play. Brady then hit a 13-yard-pass to David Patten to get the Patriots into field goal range – before Adam Vinatieri hit the most incredible field goal in NFL history to tie the game at 13.

And in overtime, the Raiders let the Patriots drive 61 yards down the field to set up the game-winning field goal. I’m sorry kids, but Brady moved the ball from the Patriots 34 to the Raiders 30 on nothing but passes to JR Redmond and Jermaine Wiggins. The Raiders had Hall of Famers Tim Brown AND Jerry Rice. The biggest drive of his life in a snowstorm, and Brady’s beating the Raiders with Redmond and Wiggins. That’s impressive.

Why are the Raiders still complaining about this? Because they had a chance to win the game, and they blew it. After a Charlie Garner 7-yard-run, they had the ball 2nd-and-3 with 2:31 to play. If they make a first down, the game’s over. Tedy Bruschi and Tebucky Jones held Garner to a 2-yard gain on second down; and Bruschi and Ty Law stoned Garner for no gain on third. If the Raiders were honest, they’d admit that this was the bigger factor as to why they lost the game. Championship teams convert those into first downs.

The Video Evidence Norm and the Irrational Haters Don’t Want You to See

“Officials reviewed the play, and rogue referee Walt Coleman, citing the “tuck rule” – the rule no one knew existed and a rule that no longer exists – overturned the call, declaring the play an incomplete pass and allowing the Patriots to retain possession.” – Norman Chad.

So according to the narrative, since nobody knew the rule, it wasn’t a thing. Brady didn’t know the rule, so therefore he fumbled, right? Except that at the speed the game was going, how would he know. The referee told him he fumbled, so he believed him.

But Belichick knew the rule. For one thing, the man knows the rules backwards and forwards. For another thing, the tuck rule was used in a game against the Patriots in the Drew Bledsoe injury game in week two against the Jets.

With 1:09 left in the first half, the Jets were driving deep in Patriots territory. You can watch the video here. Vinny Testaverde dropped back to pass, he brought his arm forward, but didn’t pass (just like Brady), and his arm was hit (just like Brady) by Anthony Pleasant. Richard Seymour recovered the ball. The referees originally ruled it a fumble. Inside of two minutes to go in the half, the booth called for a review. After taking another look, referee Larry Nemmers stepped to the microphone.

“After reviewing the play, the quarterback’s arm was coming forward before he was hit and the ball was out. Therefore it is an incomplete pass.”

And what did Nemmers have to say about the tuck rule call in the Patriots-Raiders game? “…it was the right call,”

Chad’s Asinine Assumptions

“Actually, it changed the course of National Football League history, probably. If the Patriots don’t win that game, obviously they don’t win the Super Bowl that year. They don’t win the Super Bowl that year, you have no idea how things unfold. It’s almost like a butterfly effect. They might not become the dynasty they’ve become over the last 15 years.”

So let’s take Chad’s statement at face value. So the Patriots don’t win Super Bowl XXXVI against the Rams. He then assumes that they might not win anything else after that? Because no team ever rebounded from a playoff loss to get better later?

The 2001 Patriots were coming off a 5-11 season, and they were still coached by Bill Belichick. If anything, the NFL may have gotten a reprieve in 2002, when the Patriots hangover season left them at 9-7, and missing the playoffs.

You can play the what-if game all you’d like. I can just as easily play it to get the Patriots four more Super Bowl titles in 2006, 2007, 2011, and 2015. In each of those seasons, they were likely one play away from a championship.

But we accept what happened on the field.

And we have to accept greatness.

Gates

“I call it Tuckgate, so besides Tuckgate, you know, we’ve had Spygate, we’ve had Deflategate. Any given hour of the day you have Belichickgate — you know, I wouldn’t even trust him to give me change at a toll booth. So all these things add up, and you just end up rooting against the Patriots most of the time that you’re awake,” Chad says.

The best thing about lazy journalism is that if you call a thing a gate, a lot of people with preconceived notions will believe anything you say. As shown above there was no, “tuckgate”. There was a rule being properly applied. Spygate was filming something legally from an unapproved location, that wasn’t actually changed by rule, but by a memo from the commissioner. It certainly wasn’t the taping of other team’s walkthroughs. The Boston Herald retracted that story in 2008.

And the scientific evidence shows that Deflategate didn’t happen either. The Patriots didn’t deflate any footballs at all. Maybe if Norman Chad bothered to read Sports Illustrated, he’d know that. Deflategate is the purest form of blind hatred, because accepting it means admitting to the world that you either failed high school physics, or weren’t bright enough to take the course, or that you have no integrity.

Cards on the Table

Stop this Norman. You’re better than this. This kind of mindless hatred doesn’t suit you. You’re a thinking person. You’re a really good writer, and someone who should be better than pandering to the frothing mob.

You’re a poker player, and you’re bluffing.

I call. You lose.

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