When Tackling a Quarterback Is Illegal

On opening day, Pittsburgh threw incomplete on third down; Cleveland’s Myles Garrett hit Ben Roethlisberger as the pass was released, and they tumbled to the ground. Not a late hit and not a dirty hit—yet a penalty against the Browns. Rather than attempt a field goal, the Steelers scored a touchdown on the possession. This was the decisive series of a contest that also ended in a tie.

Late hits, vicious hits, or deliberate helmet-to-helmet hits must be penalized. An Atlanta Falcon was ejected from Sunday’s Falcons-Panthers tilt for a late, vicious hit on Cam Newton, and that ejection was absolutely correct. The old body-slamming of quarterbacks—Oakland’s Ben Davidson, an unusually large human being, used to lift quarterbacks up then slam them to the turf—had to go, as did the practice of diving at the quarterback’s knees.

But this season’s penalties on Mathews and Garrett were for routine tackles that would seem clean to 99.9 percent of history’s quarterbacks. Neither hit was intended to harm—it was just football, which is a contact sport. They were moves that would be legal in tennis.

What’s going on? For the 2018 season, the NFL has added a new restriction on pass rushers. See new rule 9b: “the defensive player must strive to wrap up the passer with the defensive player’s arms and not land on the passer with all or most of his body weight.” Merely landing on the opponent is now a foul, if the opponent is a quarterback. Zebras are even supposed to eyeball a defender and mentally calculate what “most of his body weight” might be. Does that include the mass equivalent of angular momentum?

Mathews was coming straight at Cousins, initiating contact with the ball still in Cousins’s hand. The Green Bay linebacker could not have avoided landing on the quarterback without causing “all or most of his body weight” vanish into the air.

Essentially this new rule makes it illegal to tackle anyone in a passer stance.

In economic terms, NFL owners invest more capital in quarterbacks than in other kinds of players, so they have incentive to protect quarterbacks against injury. But TMQ repeats a past proposal: If it’s going to be illegal to tackle the quarterback, then quarterbacks should wear flags, and defenders should have to pull the flag. I am in earnest!

Sports rules fundamentally are arbitrary—why is a first down 10 yards rather than 9 yards or 11 yards? The NFL can make its rules whatever the NFL wants. But the emerging sense that defenders are now forbidden to touch the quarterback will just lead to more cynicism about the game, which is not exactly what pro football needs.

Two game outcomes have already been altered by the “body weight” rule, with the team that got to the quarterback being penalized for its success. More of this will equal more cynicism.

Get the thumb for vicious hits? Absolutely. No contact except a gentle yoga-pose embrace? Puh-leeze. The NFL needs to fix the body-weight rule right now—not wait for the offseason—before it gets worse.

In other football news, I would have sworn Bill Belichick just attended a Super Bowl that the Philadelphia Eagles won by going for it on fourth down. But maybe that was an impostor on the sideline in Minneapolis.

Jacksonville leading 24-13 midway through the fourth quarter, the Patriots faced 4th-and-inches—and Belichick sent out the punter. Who cares if it was 4th-and-inches at the New England 18? If you cannot gain one single inch you cannot win the game. “It’s fourth down, so the Patriots have to punt,” Chris Rose said of the situation on NFL Network. No they don’t!

The Jaguars needed just one snap to pass the spot where the ball would have been, had the Flying Elvii gone on 4th-and-inches and failed. Kudos to Jax head coach Doug Marrone for staying aggressive in the fourth quarter, learning from his mistake at the AFC title game in January. But Tuesday Morning Quarterback thought the football gods were punishing Belichick by allowing Jax to throw an immediate game-clinching touchdown pass. You’re down two scores! It’s the fourth quarter! It’s 4th-and-inches! Go for it!

In TMQ news, my preseason Super Bowl pick was Houston versus New Orleans. Now the Moo Cows are 0-2 while the Boy Scouts are 1-1 following a pair of unimpressive home games in their ideal-conditions dome.

I tabbed the Texans preseason last year, too. Since TMQ began to tout the Houston franchise, the Texans are 4-14. Sunday, New Orleans didn’t score a touchdown until the fourth quarter against the, ahem, Cleveland Browns. On a second half third-and-long, Drew Brees was sacked—by a three-man rush.

As for Houston, every NFL team has injuries; at some juncture, injuries must stop being excuses. I am officially weaseling out of my pick and now forecasting the Chiefs as AFC champs.

Since the start of the 2015 season, Kansas City is 36-18—obviously a solid core of talent. What the Chiefs lacked is an X Factor to get them revved up in the playoffs. They now have an X Factor named Patrick Mahomes. His hot start may be beginner’s luck—defensive coordinators are just acquiring film of him. But his style of long, very-fast-flying passes may shake up a league that’s accustomed to drip-drip-drip short stuff. See more on Mahomes below.

As for the Saints, TMQ is sticking to his guns. In recent seasons New Orleans has started slow, then been a juggernaut by Halloween. Maybe this team suffers from really bad Mardi Gras hangovers. TMQ now foresees a Super Bowl of Kansas City versus New Orleans.

Stats of the Week #1. Stretching back to last season, the Pittsburgh Steelers have fallen behind 21-0 in consecutive home games.

Stats of the Week #2. The Browns lead the NFL at plus-six in takeaways but have not won a game.

Stats of the Week #3. The Falcons are on a 4-0 streak versus Carolina when playing in Atlanta.

Stats of the Week #4. In their first two contests the Bills have fallen behind a combined 9-54 by halftime.

Stats of the Week #5. Joe Flacco is 3-8 in games played in Cincinnati.

Stats of the Week #6. The state of Florida is 6-0.

Stats of the Week #7. Ohio State is 7-0 in games played in the state of Texas.

Stats of the Week #8. Oakland has lost six of its last seven games played in Colorado; Jersey/A has lost six of its last seven games played against Dallas on Sunday night.

Stats of the Week #9. On their ninth try, the Jaguars finally defeated Tom Brady.

Stats of the Week #10. Since the start of the 2017 season, the Buccaneers are 3-10 with Jameis Winston at quarterback and 4-1 with Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Sweet Play of the Week. Many NFL teams treat punting plays as routine. Not the Kansas City Chiefs, where, as the column noted last month, Dave Toub is the league’s best special teams coach. Toub expected Pittsburgh to punt out of bounds, accepting a shorter net in order to keep the rock away from return man Tyreek Hill. When the Steelers lined up for their first punt, initially Hill was in the standard midfield position. As soon as the ball was snapped, Hill sprinted toward the sideline—basically, a 50/50 chance the punt would come to him anyway. Toub also had De’Anthony Thomas, another speedster, sprint toward the sideline in front of Hill, since a deliberate out of bounds kicks may pull up short. Thomas fielded the short sideline punt and returned it 31 yards, positioning the home team for the first of six touchdowns on the day. Sweet.

Even sweeter was Tennessee punting to Houston, game scoreless in the first quarter. Some teams give the punter or the upback an “automatic”—if they see a gunner uncovered, they call a fake punt without consulting the sideline, snapping ASAP before the defense realizes its error.

The Flaming Thumbtacks lined up—and neither gunner was covered. Upback Kevin Byard signaled the automatic and lobbed a pass to gunner Dane Cruikshank, who ran 66 yards for an untouched touchdown. Byard and Cruikshank are defensive backs who normally don’t get involved in offense—now one has a long touchdown pass and the other has a long touchdown reception. Byard’s throw got him a passer rating of 158.3, which is a perfect score in the NFL’s abstruse system. In the offseason, Byard’s agent is sure to ask for a bonus based on passer rating.

Sour Defensive Play of the Week. Oakland leading Denver 19-10 with six minutes remaining, the Broncos lined up to go for it on 4th-and-goal at the Raiders’ 1. Denver came out five-wide. At the goal line, the defense has almost no territory to defend—how are five-wide guys supposed to get open? Oakland fell for the ploy and shifted its defense wide. Case Keenum snapped the ball and ran straight up the middle for the touchdown that was the key score of the Broncs’ comeback. The play was straight up the middle all along—maybe Gruden the Elder has gotten rusty in his absence from coaching.

Sweet ‘n’ Sour Play. Eagles and Buccaneers tied at 7, City of Tampa took possession at its 25 after a touchback. Harvard’s Ryan Fitzpatrick threw a short turn-in to tight end O.J. Howard, who legged it 75 yards for a touchdown—the Bucs’ second consecutive 75-yard touchdown in the game. Sweet for the home team.

When Howard made the catch, there were six Philadelphia defenders close to him and two between him and the end zone. He outran them all—he’s 250 pounds!—as several Eagles began merely jogging when Howard was still far from paydirt. Sour for the defending champions.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

For Sale to Highest Bidder: Letter Defending Corruption, Signed by Friend of POTUS 45. In addition to speaking for the president, Rudy Giuliani is “chairman and chief executive officer” of Giuliani Security and Safety. Not just chairman but chairman and CEO—chosen, surely, after an exhaustive search process!

Giuliani Security and Safety is the firm that recently cranked out letters denouncing good-government initiatives in Romania. Bucharest, Washington D.C.—wherever a wealthy liar is being called to account, it’s Rudy to the rescue.

Giuliani’s official bio goes on to say that he “continues in his role as Chairman and CEO of Giuliani Partners LLC, a management consulting firm which he founded in 2002, as well as a Senior Advisor/Senior Chair at Greenberg Traurig, a law firm.” What does “senior chair” even mean? There’s no such thing as a low-ranking chairman.

So Giuliani is chairman and CEO of one firm, chairman and CEO of another firm, and also a “senior advisor/senior chair” of another firm, and also a lawyer for the president of the United States, and also a bobblehead on cable news. All these roles suggest Giuliani can’t possibly be doing any one thing well—except perhaps his role yakking on cable news, which, it would seem, cannot be done poorly.

Does Rudy actually spend any time working at Giuliani Security and Safety? Actually working at Giuliani Partners? Actually working at Greenberg Traurig? (That firm has long opposed the investigation of corruption, especially its own.) Why anyone would want safety or security advice from Giuliani is hard to fathom, since he’s the very person who failed to prepare New York City for a major terrorism attack. Giuliani was mayor on September 11, 2001, and drastically bad planning, like the NYPD and the NYFD using incompatible radios, happened on Giuliani’s watch. But now he’ll sell you expensive advice on how bad it would be if you do what he did.

The high-profile former politician who names something after himself, then boasts about choosing himself as CEO, is among the failings of the American system. Such phonies come from both parties.

Democratic party insider Leon Panetta, former director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense, today is “chairman” of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy. Chosen, surely, after an exhaustive search process!

“Secretary Panetta is the recipient of hundreds of awards and honors,” his official bio claims. This statement simply cannot be true. No human being—not Albert Schweitzer, not Eleanor Roosevelt, not Nelson Mandela—actually received “hundreds of awards and honors,” unless “honors” really means “a favorable mention in a newspaper column.” But self-flattery is essential to keeping egos like those of Giuliani and Panetta inflated.

Justin K. Aller/Getty Images

Patrick Mahomes Throws Darts—Texas Tech Happy, Buffalo Bills Sad. Blazing hot Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes has 10 touchdown passes in his first two games. Mahomes is not just the first Kansas City quarterback to do this, or any qualifier like that—he’s the first NFL quarterback to do this, period. It’s a vindication for Texas Tech and yet another bit misery for the Buffalo Bills.

Texas-born, Mahomes committed to Tech, which for years under Mike Leach and present head coach Kliff Kingsbury has put up amazing offensive stats but allowed so many points the Red Raiders rarely receive invites to high-profile bowl games. Mazda Tangerine Bowl … Ticket City Bowl … Meineke Car Care Bowl … “Hey Mom, we made the Meineke Car Care Bowl!” Texas prep stars who don’t get offers from TCU, UT-Austin, or Texas A&M settle for Texas Tech.

In turn, the NFL looks down its nose at Texas Tech. Graham Harrell threw a hard-to-believe 134 touchdown passes as a Red Raider but went undrafted and never started an NFL game. Scouts would say, Tech guys, they’re just system quarterbacks, you know, they’re in a system that puts up X-Box numbers.

Maybe—but if it’s the system, why doesn’t every football team use the Tech offensive system? Can’t blame lack of defense on the offense. As a collegian, Mahomes once threw for a hard-to-believe 734 yards, but the Red Raiders lost the game as the defense allowed 66 points. In his senior year Texas Tech averaged 44 points per game and posted a losing record. If Mahomes continues to perform well in the NFL, offensive coordinators may be forced to consider the Tech system. (Short version: very quick snaps and deep pattern after deep pattern, requiring excellent aerobic conditioning by receivers.)

As for the Bills, though they were desperate for a quarterback in the 2017 NFL draft they passed on Mahomes, who was available at the 10th overall choice, which the Bills possessed. Buffalo traded the 10th choice to Kansas City, which is why the quarterback who wore red in college now wears red in the pros.

Summing a series of transactions, over the course of two drafts, Buffalo management traded Patrick Mahomes, Sammy Watkins, left tackle Cordy Glenn, and a second-round draft choice for Josh Allen and Tre’Davious White. Allen has a lot of potential and White is a good player. But any NFL coach worth his salt would rather have what Buffalo gave up than what Buffalo got. Things are so bad with the Bills that players are retiring during games.

U.S. Classified Information for Sale to Highest Bidder (Please Note, This Is Perfectly Legal). Former CIA director John Brennan has protested loudly that Trump revoking his security clearance somehow impedes his freedom of speech. This is preposterous. Brennan continues to say whatever he pleases. Loss of his clearance may impact his income, by reducing what he can charge to corporate clients for speaking engagements. Loss of his clearance may reduce his billable hours at Kissinger Associates. But it does not alter his freedom of speech one iota.

Why does any former official who is no longer a public employee retain access to national secrets? Trump could drain this particular swamp by writing an order that all former officials of his administration—including him—lose their clearance on the day their term ends.

Brennan’s denunciations of Trump and Russia have made him a darling of the MSM, which averts its gaze from Brennan’s own links to Russia: especially, the intelligence failures regarding Moscow that were numerous on his watch at the CIA.

Brennan was CIA director in 2014 when Moscow annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine. Days before these assaults, Barack Obama was joking about Putin, clearly not having been warned. The CIA was caught flatfooted—a gigantic intelligence failure. Langley, the White House, or State sure didn’t pass any warnings to Ukraine, whose navy was trapped in the harbor by unexpected Russian moves.

The CIA under Brennan did a horrible job vis-à-vis Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea, while consistently botching advice to the Oval Office regarding Syria, Yemen, and Libya. Now on cable news Brennan wags, wags, wags his finger about the failures of others. His strident anti-Trump rhetoric may be justified in and of itself. But it also is a way of insulating him from the scrutiny he deserves for how poorly he served at the CIA.

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk. This column has long contended NFL coaches send in the kicker on 4th-and-short to avoid being blamed: If a try fails the coach is blamed, whereas if a kick booms and the team loses, the players are blamed. Head coaches who get blamed get fired, losing their very high paying gigs.

City of Tampa head coach Dirk Koetter last week put this on the record. Reader Helene Adler of Clearwater, Florida, notes Koetter declared at a presser, “The percentages say you should go for it almost every time. We’ve studied the analytics on it and the problem with looking at it like that—those are all looking at all fourth downs over the course of the season. You might get three in a row, but if I don’t get it in this particular game, we might be losing, and I might be out of here.”

Eleven years ago, computer simulations done for Tuesday Morning Quarterback showed that going for it on most 4th-and-shorts should cause an NFL team to win one more game per season than it otherwise would. Now an NFL head coach has acknowledged the logic is correct, but that fear of being blamed holds him back.

Bill Belichick and Doug Pederson don’t have to worry about being fired if they keep the offense on the field on fourth down and the try fails. Pretty much every other head coach in the NFL does need to worry. So head coaches do what appears to be foolish—punting the ball to the opposition, though possession of the ball is the most important factor in football—because they perceive it reduces their risk of losing jobs that pay millions of dollars per year for something that high school coaches do almost for free. (See more on Koetter below.)

The Crotch Grab Goes Double-X. Rams cornerback Marcus Peters was fined for a crotch grab following a touchdown against the Raiders. Is this gesture confined to testosterone-pumped males? (Rachel York, a rising Broadway star, did a graphic crotch grab while performing I Hate Men in a recent London production of Kiss Me Kate.)

Russia Profits from Short-Selling Democracy—and Washington, D.C. Goes Along. Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort just pleaded guilty to several federal offenses and agreed to cooperate with the Robert Mueller probe, but the crimes he admitted have nothing to do with Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. This leaves unanswered the question everyone’s asking—did Moscow play some consequential role in Trump defeating Hillary Clinton?

Your columnist thinks the answer has been hiding in plain sight all along. It doesn’t matter if Russia was trying to elect Trump—what matters is that we know for sure Russia was trying to harm American democracy. And that’s been going very, very well.

On Wall Street, sharps try to “short-sell” stocks—plant rumors that harm a firm, then cash in when the share price falls. That’s what Russia under the second term of Vladimir Putin—since 2012, when Putin gave up on cooperation with NATO and the European Union and decided to return to a Tsarist dreamland—has been attempting with Western liberal democracy. And it’s working.

(White House photo)

Putin and his cronies know Russia’s military can never be as strong as America’s; the Russian economy can never come close to ours (the United States GDP is 13 times that of Russia); there is no chance Russian culture will be more appealing to the larger world than American, British, or French culture. Russia simply cannot win any competition with the West. But it can devalue the essential feature of the West, which is liberal democracy.

This makes it wonderful for Moscow that the United States now has an incompetent, narcissistic president who denounces his own country while praising foreign tyrants. This makes it wonderful for Moscow that major American news organizations, and high-quality publications, have gone all-negative all-the-time. This makes it wonderful for Moscow that the United States Senate is incapable of conducting a dignified hearing for a Supreme Court nominee. This makes it wonderful for Moscow that American academia is blame-America-first. This makes it wonderful for Moscow that the expanding universe of social media emphasizes anger and discord while making no attempt whatsoever to fact-check.

Russia may or may not have tried to elect Trump; we may or may not someday have an answer. But it doesn’t matter! We already can be sure that Russia benefits from the self-generated decline of American institutions, starting in the Oval Office.

If the United States is 10 times better than Russia but the United States diminishes itself to, say, merely five times better than Russia, Moscow becomes taller without actually growing. This is what’s in progress. Since November 2016, events absolutely could not have gone better from the post-Soviet point of view.

My new book It’s Better Than It Looks goes into detail on the notion that Russia is short-selling democracy.

If my short-selling metaphor holds, ponder what comes next. In business, the successful short snaps up assets at a distress-sale price. What Western assets may Moscow be eying right now?

The Jameis Winston Suspension Is Great for the Buccaneers. Fight fiercely Harvard! Led by Harvard’s Ryan Fitzpatrick—and suiting up Harvard’s Cameron Brate—the Buccaneers opened by defeating heavily favored New Orleans on its own field, then defeated defending champion Philadelphia. Can the City of Tampa Buccaneers be for real?

This seems so unlikely that TMQ is withholding judgment. Still, City of Tampa has looked good on both sides of the ball.

Head coach Dirk Koetter surely perceived himself as in an insecure position when he arrived in 2016. There was intense pressure on Koetter to structure everything around promoting Jameis Winston, whom the Bucs had chosen with the first overall selection of the 2015 draft. The Buccaneers were owned by Malcolm Glazer, a sports entrepreneur who died in 2014; today the ownership suite is generally described as “the Glazer family,” and mixed signals from the Glazer family are common. Koetter knew what the Glazer family wanted was for him to make Winston the next Wheaties-box NFL star, to justify the Glazers’ decision to select the Florida State quarterback despise extensive negative whispering.

Now Winston is suspended, and Koetter can run the team with an objective of victory rather than an objective of making Winston a hero. If the Buccaneers keep winning, will Winston ever play for them again? Or for any NFL club?

Vandy Should Have Pulled the Goalie. Leading 22-17, Notre Dame lined up to punt to Vanderbilt from its 27-yard line with 12 seconds remaining. Pull the goalie! Blocking the kick was Vanderbilt’s last hope. Yet rather than rush all 11, the Commodores rushed but six. Vanderbilt ended up with a fair catch at its 10-yard line, and that was that.

True, if the defense rushes 11, the punter might lob a pass to one of the gunners for a first down. But few punters have the poise to do this under an all-out rush. And if the punter tries a pass that falls incomplete, that’s as good as a block, since possession goes to the defense at the prior spot.

Yet coaches almost never pull the goalie against punters, even in desperate circumstances. Just as on fourth-down tries, the coach knows that if he orders something out of the ordinary and it fails, he gets blamed; if he does the expected and it fails, players get blamed.

Michael Lewis Is the Perfect Person to Write a Book About NCAA Institutional Corruption. Head coach Hugh Freeze was fired at Ole Miss when caught doing exactly what he was depicted as doing in The Blindside—faking academic credentials. “Two [Ole Miss football] staff members helped arrange fraudulent standardized test scores for three prospects.” Since Ole Miss had elaborate advanced warning that Freeze acts this way, maybe a head coach who fakes SAT results is what the trustees of Ole Miss wanted.

Announcing penalties, the NCAA declared the “vacation” of Ole Miss wins, which sounds like they are on their way to Los Cabos. The penalties have to do with what the NCAA supervises—becoming qualified for an athletic scholarship. What happens once an athlete is in college. That whole, you know, education thing, went unmentioned. Not the NCAA, not the trustees of the school, and certainly not the sports media seemed to care about Ole Miss having a 36 percent African-American graduation rate in football.

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk (Kickoff Edition). When Philadelphia drew within 27-21 of City of Tampa with 2:46 remaining, Doug Pederson had the defending champions kick away rather than onside; they did not get the ball back till 19 seconds showing. When Pittsburgh drew within 42-37 of Kansas City with 1:59 remaining, Mike Tomlin had the Steelers kick away, rather than onside kick; Pittsburgh never got another possession. In both cases the team kicking away held three time outs.

A factor is new NFL kickoff rules. The league wants to discourage kickoff returns, which are much more likely to cause concussions than other types of downs. But the NFL also wants to discourage onside kicks. Not sure what the rationale is in this case, since onside kicks are so rare, your columnist doubts there is data on their safety or lack of same.

NFL teams now cannot overload the side of the onside kick, and the kicking team cannot take a running start. Also, the first two guys near the onside kick cannot block return men out of the way. Roll these together and coaches feel it is now close to impossible to recover an expected onside kick (though the Giants did recover an expected onside at Dallas). Onside kicks are among football’s most exciting plays—why discourage excitement?

Trailing 24-10 at Jax in the third quarter, New England kicked off from the midfield stripe because of a penalty against the Jaguars. The Patriots did not onside kick—though from midfield, the downside risk is slight. Yikes stripes!

Icing the Kicker Actually Worked! THE WEEKLY STANDARD’S fixation on Wisconsin athletics spilled over into college action Saturday, as BYU upset the sixth-ranked Badgers. Trailing 21-24 with 41 seconds remaining in regulation, Wisconsin sent out its placekicker to attempt a 42-yard field goal to tie. BYU had three time outs, and the clock was already stopped because of an incompletion. There was a good case for holding the time outs so that, if Wisconsin connected, the Cougars would have a realistic shot at winning with a field goal in the other direction.

Instead BYU coach Kilani Sitake called an icing time out. This tactic makes purists groan—it stalls the action, and so far as I know, there’s no statistical evidence that time outs cause kickers to become more likely to miss. Then as zebras signaled ready-to-play, Sitake called another time out. In the NFL, consecutive time outs is unsportsmanlike conduct, but under college rules, it’s smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

As the end of the second time out approached, Sitake make a great show of signaling the linesman over to him and gesturing toward the scoreboard clock, as if he was going to call the third time out. Tick-tick-tick—then he didn’t call the third time out, the umpire told Wisconsin to snap, and the Badgers’ kick missed. Not only did an icing time out actually succeed; the first two built up to faking an icing time out!

In the Green Bay-Minnesota tie, both placekickers missed late field goal attempts following an icing time out.

The 700 Club. TMQ promised to retire this item, but can’t help noting that visiting Davidson, Guilford gained 698 yards and lost by 30 points. As reported by reader Chip Rickard of Cincinnati, the Quakers scored nine touchdowns, committed only one turnover, and still managed to lose 91-61. Guilford opened the contest by punting on 4th-and-short in Davidson territory—and yea, verily, the football gods did punish this.

In Minnesota prep action, many readers noted that versus Elk River High, Buffalo High School gained 698 yards, scored 10 touchdowns, and lost.

Adventures in Officiating. Host Cincinnati leading visiting Baltimore 28-23 midway through the fourth quarter, the Bengals faced 3rd-and-2 in their own territory. Slot receiver Tyler Boyd ran a short crosser covered by nickelback Tavon Young. The pass fell incomplete; Cincinnati would have punted, giving the Nevermores possession with a five-point deficit. Young was called for defensive holding, which created a first down. Ultimately Cincinnati got a field goal on the drive and took control of the endgame dynamic.

Did Young hold? He was hand-checking Boyd—placing his hand on the receiver’s waist, the way defenders hand-check in basketball. This is technically illegal but almost never flagged unless the defender shoves the receiver, which Young did not do. On every down in an NFL game, someone’s doing something technically illegal. The call was ticky-tacky and helped determine the outcome.

Zips in the News. The University of Akron made sports news over the weekend by upsetting heavy favorite Northwestern. Your columnist is upset because this season there will be no contest between Akron and nearby University of Toledo. That matchup has one of the best name pairs in collegiate athletics—the Zips versus the Rockets.

Next Week. Rudy Giuliani and John Brennan form a consultancy to move in on the Ukrainian rackets that Paul Manafort had to give up.