LV@NO: No touch, no logic

Simple question: Does the Saints’ Noah Fant get in, i.e., make contact with. the end zone? No. Does waving the ball over an out-of-bounds field marker, i.e., the pylon, seem worthy of a touchdown? Simple answer: No.

In the professional game, a receiver must get two feet down inbounds just to get credit for a catch. But here, you don’t have to get either foot inbounds and you get credit for six points? What a weird rule. Hocus Bogus Rating: 5

LV@NO: Unfancy footwork

In the same game where Noah Fant was rewarded with a touchdown for floating through the ether above a pylon while never touching the end zone, the Raiders’ Mike Washington earns another curious six points by going airborne while crossing the goal line, then making first contact beyond that stripe with his foot half inbounds and half out-of-bounds.

Anywhere else on the field, Washington would be ruled out of bounds. But everything changes — for the worst, in our view — in the end zone, all due to the break-the-plane rule. If you can’t make fully inbounds contact after crossing the goal line, we say you don’t deserve six points. Line up on the 1 and prove you have the skills to earn a touchdown. Rating: 3.5

PHI@CHI: Corner-cutting

The break-the-plane rule has taught ballcarriers that as they near the end zone, they can avoid tacklers by essentially widening the field. Rather than aim for the end zone, as the Bears’ Kalil Raymond demonstrates here, they can run wide, fly over the goal line and land a foot or more out of bounds and safely collect six points without getting caught. In what is sometimes called “a game of inches,” this is a clever tactic. Not entiely fair, but clever. Rating: 3.5

DAL@BAL: Corner-cutting, pt. 2

The Cowboys’ KaVontae Turpin takes the same approach as the Bears’ Kalil Raymond in the previous play and earns the same result: six points for zooming through the end zone’s airspace and landing out of bounds, never making contact with what was once called “paydirt.” The practice has become a regrettable norm. Rating: 3.5

LAR@DEN: Springboard to an empty 6

It’s just a hunch, but we suspect Denver coach Sean Payton put quarterback Bo Nix up to this gimmick play, the same one he green-lighted many times for Drew Brees during their time together in New Orleans: Just leap toward the goal line, catch a wisp of end zone airspace, and walk away with six points. Easy. Comically easy.

The break-the-plane rule terminates a play the instant any faction of the ball in the hands of an offensive player is perceived to break the Great Invisible Plane. On this play Nix comes no where near reaching the end zone and even loses control of the ball. The defense is clearly the superior unit during the scrum. No matter. If just a nub of the ball is believed to have punctured the end zone’s airspace, it’s a touchdown, no matter how lame the play looks. Rating: 5