CAR@NO: Shortsighted

Awarding a touchdown should be a simple process: Did the ball carrier reach the end zone? Did the player advancing the ball make contact with the designated scoring area?

Here it is obvious that Carolina’s Rico Dowdle never reached the end zone. He never made contact with it. He did briefly lean into a fraction of the end zone’s airspace as he was being smashed to the ground by, among others, Saints’ safety Jonas Sanker (33) and DE Carl Granderson (96). He clearly lands, ball clutched tightly in his right arm, short of the goal line.

Yet despite making zero contact with the end zone, he is handed six points. We find that ruling is both stupefying and unjust. It’s another mystifying moment brought to you by the break-the-plane rule. Enjoy the absurdity, football fans. Hocus Bogus Rating: 5

BUF@NE: Not-so-fancy footwork

Amazing but true: Only in the end zone can a ball carrier step out of bounds yet be ruled in bounds. And not just in bounds, but worthy of receiving six points, the largest payout in football. What a country!

Here New England QB Drake Maye, seeking to avoid getting belted by Buffalo safety Jordan Poyer (21), runs wide left and makes his first step after passing the goal line partially out of bounds.

This essentially makes the end zone wider than 53 1/3 yards (160 feet), and and defenders such as Poyer have to live with that disgruntling fact, one that always favors the offense in the game’s relentless quest to put as many points on the scoreboard, not matter how illogical the thinking. That’s a harsh reality for anyone who plays defense. Rating: 4

College: The worst of 2025

No-touch scoring plays are awful to see at any point in a game. But when one of them decides the game’s outcome, especially in a championship game, it is particularly outrageous and genuinely heartbreaking.

In the Celebration Bowl played Dec. 13 in Atlanta, South Carolina State won its second HBCU title in the past five years in the fourth overtime when, during a required two-point conversion attempt, Bulldogs running back Tyler Smith (10) caught a pass, ran toward the sideline and was knocked out of bounds by Kamen Amao of Prairie View A&M (23).

Smith was in the vicinity of a pylon as he flew out of bounds and was somehow ruled to have broken the Great Invisible Plane as he passed by.

Not a chance.

Implausibly, that ruling gave South Carolina the decisive two points, ending Prairie View A&M’s hopes of winning its first HBCU crown in 61 years.

“That championship-deciding review is the roughest officiating I’ve seen all season,” wrote Jason Kirk of The Athletic. “I didn’t see any angle where it looked like Tyler Smith had been able to get that ball inside the pylon. Alas.”

We provide two views of the play, a condensed glimpse and a four-minute version where the announcing crew (Tiffany Greene, play-by-play, and analyst Jay “Sky” Walker) repeatedly discuss how they see nothing that convinces them that the play should be ruled a score. Yet the break-the-plane rule once again exerts its mighty force in cruel, illogical fashion. Rating: 5