2024: Worst pylon pokes

It is a question with no sensible answer: Why are ball carriers awarded a touchdown for swatting a pylon? Pylons, as explained in the NFL Rulebook, are wholly, completely and entirely positioned in out-of-bounds territory.

Anywhere else on the field, if a ball carrier touches the white sideline, the play ends. But when he touches a goal line pylon with the ball, the party starts. It’s a six-point play, and we cannot understand why on earth football rulemakers suddenly abandon all logic when pylons are involved in a play.

Our two-part video compendium of 10 goofy plays from the 2024 season displays the sheer silliness of the break-the-plane/poke-the-pylon rule. All the rule accomplishes is making possible curious plays with odd results. And because of the rule, the defense must protect an extra-wide area, since ball carriers realize they are not obligated to make contact with the end zone. They can just run wide and smack a pylon, or just wave the ball over one, while sailing out of bounds. Sounds fair? Watch our clips and decide for yourself. 

2024: Worst pylon fly-bys

We don’t know when, and we don’t know who, but long ago someone decided that ball carriers should be awarded six points even if they never touch the end zone. Just wave the ball in the vicinity of a pylon, a foam stick that is located entirely out of bounds, and we’ll give you six points. Mind breaking.

In this clip we present our picks for the worst pylon fly-bys of the 2024 season. If you are a defensive player or coach, maybe you should not watch. It could make you weep. 

Summer ’25: Top 10 preseason puzzlers

Let this stat settle in: 49 games were played during the 2025 preseason schedule, and 11 times touchdowns were awarded even though the ball carrier did not make contact with the end zone. Thus 22 percent of preseason games in 2025 included an airspace touchdown. And 100 percent of those touchdowns were certifiably ugly.

Two ball carriers (Jameis Winston, NYG, and Frank Gore, Jr., BUF) eventually reached the end zone, but only after whistles had sounded. Otherwise, end zones went untouched, and logic was once again sacked by the break-the-plane rule. Our compilation video presents the preseason’s top 10 ugliest scores.

Spring ’25: More wacky UFL ATDs

We present a visual roundup of the some of the most peculiar touchdown rulings from the UFL’s second season. Why is it, we wonder, do fans and coaches find these calls acceptable? 

Super Bowl ATDs: We’ve seen a few

The first 58 Super Bowls have produced some classic phantom touchdowns, none more perplexing than the Patrick Mahomes-to-Damien Williams pass play that put Kansas City ahead for good in Super Bowl LIV with less than three minutes to play. We offer a sampler of six such plays in our compilation clip. For a detailed look at each one, see our Super Bowls 1–58 page.

Thanks to the break-the-plane rule for giving football fans decades of endless mystery and nonstop befuddlement.

Spring ’24: ATDs in the UFL

During the UFL’s inaugural 80-game regular season and three postseason games, we spotted 11 airspace touchdowns — and could have argued for a few more, but we counted only the most conclusive no-touch touchdowns that replays confirmed. We share with you some notable head-shakers.

2023: Top 10 ATDs, first six weeks

We counted 22 no-touch touchdowns during the first six weeks of the 2023 season, and our Top 10 includes gems such as this lunge-and-hope effort by the Colts’ Kylen Granson that, as if by magic, was deemed worthy of six points. 

What if: Baseball and break-the-plane?

Imagine if break-the-plane logic infiltrated all of our sports and games.

In baseball, every fly ball that gouges any portion of the airspace above or beyond an outfield fence should be considered a home run. Each one broke the plane, right? So all these over-the-fence defensive heroics should not matter.

What a sad world that would be.

Summer ’24: Pylons in the preseason

During 55 NFL preseason games this summer we spotted seven airspace touchdowns (and an eighth that is not included in our compilation reel).

Inspiring? Only if you get all worked up over pure lameness, such as the moment the Saints’ Spencer Rattler (18) was awarded six points for merely waving the ball above the pylon (which, BTW, is positioned out of bounds) but never contacting the designated scoring area.