CLE@PIT: Now THIS is a real reach

For years we’ve had this dream: Someone on a breakaway run with no defenders within 20 yards would stop just short of the goal line, reach the ball across the line, then drop the ball and walk away. By rule, refs would have to give him a touchdown. And people would think, “Wait, you can do that?” Yes. Yes you can.

Cleveland’s David Njoku gave us the next-best thing. After getting popped by Pittsburgh’s Terrell Edmunds (34), Njoku runs parallel to the goal line but never touches it before going out of bounds. Njoku logically decided an end zone wave-over is easier, and it’s legal, so why bother to try and hit paydirt? Be a one-armed bandit instead. The existing rule rewards such shortcuts. Hocus Bogus rating: 5.

KC@LV: Wrasslemania at the pylon

Raiders linebacker Luke Masterson (59) sprints across the field, decleats Kadarius Toney with a big hit before Toney reaches the 1 and yanks him out of bounds. Impressive. Yet Toney is awarded a touchdown based on . . . guesswork.

It’s not clear if the ball broke the goal line’s plane. Maybe it nicked the pylon’s airspace—but pylons are 99% out of bounds. What IS clear is Toney never touched the end zone. Thus all of Masterson’s effort goes for naught. A pity. Rating: 4.5.

CAR@NO: Avoid the hit; just go wide

Ball carriers run to the pylon a lot because they’ve learned the maneuver delivers big advantages: 1) They can skip over the corner of the end zone and, because the ball (maybe) is breaking some invisible plane, they can land out of bounds and benefit from a wider scoring zone. 2) Because the scoring zone can be made extra-wide, defenders are forced to run extra-far. Advantage, offense.

Here if the Saints’ Chris Olave was required to make inbounds contact with the end zone, it might have given Carolina safety Jeremy Chinn (21) the step he needed to bang Olave out of bounds before he got to the goal line. Rating: 4.

HOU@IND: Rarity: the D exploits the rule

Here’s a rare case where a defender benefits from the break-the-plane rule. After his pick, Indy’s Rodney McLeod crash-lands on the pylon after QB Davis Mills’ above-average open-field tackle. We believe pylons should be used to indicate when a player is out of bounds, so to us this is no pick six—it’s a Nix Six. 

As the screenshot shows, McLeod comes close to landing on the goal line, which we would rule a legit TD, but he makes contact with the spot where the pylon stands, which is on the sideline, which is OOB. If he had stepped anywhere on that sideline, he would be ruled OOB; so why should a ball carrier be given an extra four inches (the pylon’s width) at both ends of the goal line? Rating: 3.5.