Steve Czban on Art Monk

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by davy

OK, I'll explain this one more time as I'm obviously not making my point clearly enough.

Imagine a receiver running a route to the back of the endzone, he leaps, makes the catch and comes down with the toes of both feet in bounds while the rest of his feet are still off the ground, his heels then come down out of bounds. This will be given as a TD everytime because it is deemed that as soon as his toes land in bounds he has both feet in regardless of where his heels eventually land.

My argument is that the heel of Art Monk's second foot came down in bounds while his toes were still in the air so he should have been deemed to have both feet in bounds at that moment.

This is simply not the case. I have a tape of the game, I've seen it and his toes are not "in the air" while his heel is down. One half of his foot comes down before the white line, while the other half (including his toes) comes down in the white. That's not a catch no matter how you try to explain it.

In your example, where the toes come down on end while the receiver's momentum carries him out -- as long as possession is confirmed, that's a catch because no part of his feet are touching any part of the white paint while he has the ball. In that instant, it's a catch and a touchdown. In his complete step, Monk's heel was in the endzone while his toes were out.

It's just not a catch.