Sometimes transparency is not manifested at all. Sometimes it just takes a while.
In conjunction with our quest to understand not being fined Browns quarterback Jameis Winston for the intentional grounding Thursday night in Cleveland, we inadvertently overcame the league’s admission that the rule was improperly applied in Week 3, during the Baltimore-Dallas game.
Second quarter. The Cowboys have the ball on their own seven, facing a third-and-10. Quarterback Dak Prescott drops back into the end zone. He throws the ball to offensive lineman Tyler Smith as he’s about to throw for a safety.
The Cowboys were not penalized for intentional grounding even though Smith was not the eligible receiver on the play. The officials flagged Smith for illegal touchingand the Ravens were told that the illegal touch essentially nullified the intentional grounding.
“They said it wasn’t an intentional grounding because somebody caught it, even though it was caught by an illegal receiver, which is a penalty,” coach John Harbaugh told reporters a week after the game. “So they’re basically getting a reward for having a penalty there, you know? That’s probably not what they want under the rule. So we’ll see. Maybe it’s a loophole. I’m not sure. Something they want.” But because the receiver caught it, you can’t call an intentional grounding to me.”
The problem arose again, as it appeared at first glance that the same loophole had saved Winston from the grounding call. He threw the ball at an unauthorized receiver, who was called for illegal touches.
That’s why we posted this tweet at that time; We thought the Ravens-Cowboys ruling applied again. But then the conversation shifted to whether Winston was hit during the throw, whether the hit significantly affected the throw, whether the throw was made to the right receiver before Winston was hit.
To cut the whole conversation short, the league just said that illegal touches replace intentional grounding. As it was in the Ravens-Cowboys game.
So we asked if the same twist was used in Steelers-Browns. The league said: “In the Baltimore-Dallas game, it was not ruled that there was an eligible receiver in the area. It was a misapplication of the rule whether or not it was caught by an ineligible player, which would have been an intentional grounding if there was no eligible receiver in the area.”
Bottom line? There is no loophole for an incompetent receiver for intentional grounding. Even if it was nine weeks ago in Dallas, the basic rule should not be interpreted.