The call heard round the world...

Interception! Touchdown! Wait...huh?

So unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard about this. During the Monday night game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers, the replacement referees made a ton of questionable calls, culminating in what will now go down in history as one of the worst calls in the NFL. Seahawk's wide reciever Golden Tate shoved a defensive player out of the way and jumped up to grab the ball thrown into the endzone by Seattle's QB, Russell Wilson. As he was doing this, Packer's safety, M. D. Jennings also jumped up to grab the ball.
To me, it looked like Jennings held the ball close to his chest and then they
both fell on the ground, fighting for the ball. There were two officials standing right next to the action. They looked at each other, nodded, and called opposite signals. One for a touchdown and one for an interception.

The NFL later upheld the ruling, making everyone go even more nuts. Apparently, the ruling was that Tate and Jennings had simultaneous possession of the ball in which case, the ball would go to the passing team (Seahawks).

I looked up the official rule on what a "simultaneous catch" means. Here is is:

If a pass is caught simultaneously by two eligible opponents, and both players retain it, the ball belongs to the passers. It is not a simultaneous catch if a player gains control first and an opponent subsequently gains joint control. If the ball is muffed after simultaneous touching by two such players, all the players of the passing team become eligible to catch the loose ball.

First of all, Tate shoved another player out of the way which should have been a penalty in the first place. Then, clearly, Jennings grabbed it first and Tate wrestled it out of his arms, which according to the above definition, would not constitute a simultaneous catch. 

You might have seen your Facebook page blow up the other night with rants and raves about the game. Even President Obama got in on the action:

And perhaps one of the most re-tweeted statements of the night came from Packer's TJ Lang, a GB guard:

Personally, I find it hilarious that everyone is begging the Old Refs to come back. How soon everyone forgets how much they hate "regular old refs", too. It will be an amazing sight to see them cheered for and worshipped when they return....until they make a "regular old" bad call, of course. 

Until next time!!