The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [115]
As it turned out, in my haste to exit the bar, I had missed the replay booth signal referee Walt Coleman to review the play which, in the final two minutes, is the replay official’s call to make. I quickly turned on the TV and flipped to ESPN, whose analysts were dissecting the play. The replay, which they showed roughly 7,000 times (give or take a few thousand), clearly showed that Brady had begun his throwing motion but, sensing the charging Woodson, lowered his throwing arm and clutched the ball with both hands in a last-second attempt to “tuck” away or protect the football. Brady seemed to have halted his throwing motion before becoming separated from the ball, but he never completed the tucking action. Still, it sure looked like a fumble to me.
Subsequent highlights revealed that as I had been ignorantly waiting for an uptown 6 train, a hush had fallen over the anxious, capacity Foxboro crowd. With the Patriots’ entire season riding on the call, one could have heard the snowflakes falling as Coleman walked to the middle of the field and confidently announced, “After reviewing the play, the quarterback’s arm . . . was coming forward. It is an incomplete pass.”
I beg your pardon? The quarterback’s arm was doing what? Were we just watching the same replay?
Apparently we were. While under the hood, Coleman had seen enough to reverse his own call, later explaining that the play fell under the purview of Rule 3, Section 21, Article 2, Note 2 of the NFL rulebook, which states:
When a Team A 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.
Much to the delight of the Patriots and their fans, the interpretation of this strange “Tuck Rule” caused the call on the field to be reversed. Brady, given new life, quickly completed a firstdown pass to wide receiver David Patten that put placekicker Adam Vinatieri in a position to attempt a forty-five-yard, gametying field goal. Without a timeout, the Patriots did not have the luxury of clearing the spot for Vinatieri, but he got the kick off cleanly and somehow managed to boot the ball through both the snowflakes and the uprights to send the game into overtime. The poor Raiders never saw the ball again. Brady completed all six of his passes to start the extra session, and with 8:29 remaining, Vinatieri connected yet again on a twenty-three-yard, game-winning kick. Incredible.
Incredible, that is, for the Patriots. In the locker room after the game, the Raiders expressed the overwhelming opinion that they had been robbed.
“[The call] never should have been overturned,” said an angry Woodson. “Ball came out. Game over.”
“I feel like we had one taken away from us,” said the usually reserved Jerry Rice.
“We didn’t lose this game,” added linebacker William Thomas. “It was stolen from us.”
Jon Gruden, the Raiders’ head coach at the time, fumed in his post-game press conference. “It was obvious,” Gruden said through his trademark scowl. “I thought it was a fumble. But the officials thought otherwise. You can never count on anything in the NFL.”
Standing by his call, Coleman explained it to the media. “When I got over to the replay monitor and looked, it was obvious that Brady’s arm was coming forward,” he said. “He was trying to tuck the ball, and they just knocked it out of his hand. His hand was coming forward, which makes it an incomplete pass. He has to get it all the way tucked back in order for it to be a fumble.”
Mike Pereira, the NFL′s vice president of officiating, also stood behind Coleman’s call, as did then Commissioner Paul Tagliabue in the days that followed. The Patriots won the next week in Pittsburgh to reach the Super Bowl for only the third time in