By that logic, couldn't you say any passing play that results in a TD that isn't caught in the endzone is a rushing TD? Because the passing play ended when the ball was caught and the receiver ran the rest of the way?
As a compromise you could make it so that ONLY a lateral starts a new running play with its own stats. The Randy Moss play gets recorded as a 46-yard passing play from Culpepper to Moss, Moss lateral to Williams at the 15, and then Williams gets a 15-yard rushing TD. Neither Moss nor Culpepper are awarded a TD in this case.
They should change the logic so that "yard-after-catch" is part of the pass-and-catch play. When a lateral occurs, that's a handoff that results in a running play. That down should've been like a 2-yard pass and a 2-yard catch, and a running TD.
This is basically an improvised hook and ladder play. The Lions have run this to success this year leading to a similar weird stat line. Jahmyr Gibbs in week 3 against Arizona had 0 receptions, 20 receiving yards, and a TD.
@@W-mans26no he passed to cooper who then latteraled it back to Allen for a touchdown so cooper got the catch and then Allen got all of the yards and the touchdown once he crossed the go a line it isn't that hard
@@W-mans26 it is the same as every latteral ever the nfl words it so that only 1 person can make a catch since a catch is when a player receives a forward pass and since laterals are by definition not forward passes that wording prevents there from being 20 passes and receptions on those last play of the game plays with 20 laterals. If the play starts as a pass play then the play should end with someone getting receiving yards and a touchdown barring weird circumstances. So Allen threw the ball to cooper. Cooper made a catch Cooper made a successful laterally back to Allen Who then continued to advance his original pass into the endzone for a reviving touchdown since someone received a pass during the play and it was advanced into the endzone
Is this really weird rules, though? No animations, different hosts, twice as long but half as interesting - this is just kind of a glorified podcast exerpt
As a former football statistician, the breakdown is important for talent evaluation and game planning, but it's also somewhat arbitrary. Coaches and scouts want things like Yards After Catch that are very hard to break down. When I read the NFL's statistics guidelines as a HS/College statistician, they were way more detailed than what we'd been using up to that point; I had to start watching live and then supplementing with game tape after the fact, and we had a team with multiple spotters and a recorder.
Three completely random things I thought about as I read your post. 1. Your avatar is really cute, did you draw it yourself? 2. I feel like it's very rare to find someone who has a background as a former football statistician and also has a cute anime avatar. I would think the overlap of those two types of people is extremely thin. 3. Your youtube account is one of the oldest I have ever seen. Made only a year after RUclips launched.
@@xXUnoriginalNameXx33Meygaera 1) I made this avatar off a picrew a few years back that I can no longer find 2) I'm pretty weird :). I love math and stories, and sports has math and stories, and emergent stories that you only see when you look at the math. 3) Yeah, I'm pretty old. Also my username is a handle I stopped using not long afterwards. But if I stopped using this account, I'd lose my grandfathered pricing on YT Premium/YT Music I have from when I was a beta subscriber to Google Music.
In 1962, Baltimore Colts receiver Bake Turner finished with 1 reception and 111 receiving yards. He gained 37 yards on one play after teammate RC Owens caught a pass an lateraled to Turner. Later, Turner caught a 74-yard TD Pass.
I think reframing how one looks at receiving yards it makes logical sense. Receiving yards is the yardage of the pass + the run after the catch. In most cases this doesn’t matter since whoever caught it is usually the runner. In this case Josh Allen was the runner, but it still occurred after the initial catch by Cooper so Allen’s yardage should be marked as run after catch and thus fall under receiving yards.
100% this, theyre getting hung up on it because its called receiving yards and Allen never gets a reception. But the term receiving yards is a tad misleading
It was basically an unintentional hook-and-ladder. So the easy comparison is the Lions vs 49ers. Goff 1yd pass to St. Brown (1 Rec/1 rec yd), lateral to J. Williams 41 yds TD (0 Rec/41 rec yds/1 rec TD).
I'm impressed that they went nearly the entire video without using the term "lateral", before finally referring to it during the Culpepper to Moss comparison. The NFL rule on laterals is that a lateral pass does not count as a reception; only the player who initially catches the quarterback's pass is credited with a reception, while any subsequent players receiving a lateral only get receiving yards from the point of the lateral onwards.
I kinda disagree here....I genuinely don't see why it's such an issue that it's not a rushing touchdown. Josh Allen throws the ball, therefore it's a pass play. Josh Allen did not catch the ball, so he doesn't get a reception. Josh Allen ran the ball in for the touchdown, so it's a touchdown on a pass play (receiving touchdown). Something isn't going to be quite right here. You'll either have a pass that doesn't have a receiving touchdown or you'll have a rushing touchdown that occurs on a passing play. If we go with the latter then all of a sudden we won't attribute the Randy Moss lateral play to the QB? That seems unfair.
@@ThePrufessathis is incorrect. Hook and ladder or hitch and pitch is a passing touchdown, instead of having a third player involved with the pitch or ladder portion it was the qb receiving the ball.
Bake Turner averaged 111 yards per reception in 1962. He had one catch for 74 yards and a touchdown, he also took one lateral and had 37 additional receiving yards on it.
Video came out juuuust before another weird NHL example happened, a Buffalo Sabres player, Ryan McLeod scored a hat trick against the Carolina Hurricanes with the completion of the hat trick not having a shot on goal because he was slashed on a breakaway, which would normally award him a penalty shot, but the Carolina net was empty so in that case the goal is just awarded to the player that was on a breakaway without giving them a shot on goal.
Bonitto intercepted a lateral and ran it for a defensive TD, but it was considered a fumble rather than an interception (pick 6) because it was not a forward pass.
Since you brought it up… in Rocket League, if a team own goals, and the opposing team somehow never touches the ball at any point between the kickoff and goal, it shows ‘blue/orange goal’, and no one player is awarded a goal. Also, if you are awarded a goal when an opponent own goals, if your touch wasn’t a shot, the scoreboard will show a goal without recording a shot.
None of this is new. This is how they've always scored laterals. Think of your standard hook and ladder (as much as those can be standard) which is exactly the same as this, just this one includes the QB and he had no other receptions in the stat book. Jameson Williams had a TD similar to this a few weeks later where one receiver (I think it was Amon-Ra) caught the ball and lateralled it to Jamo sweeping under him to take it up the sideline for a TD. That's a reception and the initial yards for the first receiver and like 20 more yards, a TD, but no reception for Jamo. No one noticed it looking weird in the stat book because he had other receptions.
This is my take: A recieving touchdown must be recieved in the end zone. Receivig yards and Passing yards are credited from the line of scrimage to the point of reception. Yards after catch are rushing yards.
It feels like you defined their idea on scoring in just the sentence "Down not a play". Everything that takes place in the down is recorded as a passing down. the individual plays are categorized as running plays in a passing down (YAC, Receiving Yards, etc.) but they would all still have their own subcategories in a passing down. Rushing stats would be for a rushing down. It totally makes sense how they score it based on the premise you gave in the video its just confusing to speak out to another person but everything seems to start from the question is it a running down or a passing down. Then the stat tree breaksdown the play from there haha.
So clearly a "passing touchdown" does not mean "a touchdown on a pass." After all, if you catch a pass in the end zone, sure, that's a passing touchdown, but _also_ if you catch a pass not in the end zone, and the passing play ends while a running play starts, and then you run the ball into the end zone, that's _still a passing TD._ So it doesn't matter which play is happening when you enter the end zone. All that matters is whether the down contained a legal forward pass. If the down contains a passing play and a touchdown, then that is a passing touchdown, regardless of whether the ball was run into the end zone or thrown into the end zone. I actually think that makes sense and matches the way most people talk about passing TDs. It only gets weird when a different person is credited with the catch and the TD, but hey, that happens sometimes. This is hardly the first time a person received a pass, lateraled to anther player, and the second player scored. This play only differs in that the person receiving the lateral was also the passer, but that shouldn't lead to a different special ruleset just for that one eventuality.
Yeah theyre working under the assumption that names passing TD and receiving yards are perfect descriptions for what theyre are but thats not true. The names scored on a play containing a legal forward pass TDs or yards gained during a play containing a legal forward pass dont quite roll off the tongue so they were simplified to passing TDs and receiving yards
As a person who basically never watches football, I am astounded by how rare this seems to be. A QB passes the ball to a receiver and then gets it back. I just can't fathom that sequence of events being that rare in the entire history of the game.
I'm always surprised how rare laterals are in football despite being so useful in rugby. I guess it's because it's more valuable for a player to be blocking than in a position to receive a pass?
The QB getting the ball back is likely not uncommon, especially on game ending plays when there are a bunch of laterals. A QB in that situation may eventually end up with the ball. The uncommon/rare part is that it ends in a touchdown.
@@Tomwithnonumbers I think this can be attributed to the risk of a fumble and losing possession in football is so much more than in rugby. Rugby is much more free flowing and possession can change hands multiple times in a short sequence. Losing possession in football can be devastating, especially if you are near either end zone. In football, by lateraling, you're risking possession for possibly only a minimal gain in yardage.
Laterals are super weird if you think about it. If the ball hits the ground during a lateral, it's considered a fumble instead and if it's picked up and advanced it's a fumble recovery with fumble recovery yards.
Nope, it's counted as a fumble. I don't remember the specific incident but a pick 6 was ruled as a fumble recovery for a TD at some point because it was some sort of double pass that was picked off.
At 10:02 "the first play was a passing play, therefore everything that comes next will be receiving" - that is how we do it at the college level. The same is true if the first play is a kick or punt return or an interception return. In the case of the Amari Cooper/Josh Allen play, the original LOS was the SF7. Cooper advanced to about the SF3 but passed back to Allen at the SF8. Under NCAA rules, Cooper would get one reception for minus-1 yards. Allen would get no reception but 8 receiving yards and the receiving TD in addition to a completed TD pass for 7 yards. If you add it all up, it makes sense: one attempt, one completion, one reception, 7 passing/receiving yards and one passing/receiving TD. By college rules, no part of the overall play was a running play, so there should be no rushing yards. Also FWIW, you guys have it partially correct when it comes to a basketball player shooting in the wrong goal. It largely comes down to intent. If someone just brainfarts and scores in their own bucket, that will go in as a team FG for the team that gets awarded the points. The OS will make a note of it somewhere in the margin of the scorebook. However, if the wrong-goal bucket is accidental (e.g. someone taps in the ball while trying to get a defensive rebound) or incidental (e.g. someone trying to block a shot ends up deflecting it INTO the goal), then you are correct - it goes to the nearest player (in the example of the attempted rebound) or the original shooter (in the example of the attempted block).
The basketball discussion at 10:20 is great timing given the own goal from the end of the Knicks-Pistons game last night. Mikal Bridges blocked Cade Cunningham's layup off the backbooard but KAT's delayed block attempt tipped it into the rim. Official play-by-play just says Cade made and attempted a layup over Bridges, who doesn't get credit for a clutch block because the shot attempt, block, and own goal are regarded as one play.
According to Pro Football Reference, the River City Relay was scored a similar way: Jerome Pathon 21 yard pass from Aaron Brooks. That 21 yard pass can only be the initial forward pass to Donte Stallworth, however, since Pathon caught the last lateral at the JAX 24 yard line.
I don't really see what is confusing about this (or at least what is confusing about it when you spend a moment to think of how passing is measured in football). If a QB makes a screen pass behind the line of scrimmage but the receiver goes for a 40 yard TD run, that's counted as 40 passing yards and a passing TD. Doesn't matter that the ball only went 5 yards through the air and the spot it was caught was behind the line of scrimmage (and would have been a loss if it was downed there) - the QB still gets passing yard credit for all the positive yards the receiver ran and also got a passing TD credit (despite the fact that the receiver basically did everything to run it in). Take the exact same play, but say receiver A (who caught the screen) gets tackled and laterals to receiver B, and receiver B runs in for a touchdown. It's still 40 passing yards and a passing TD for the QB, a reception for receiver A, and a reception TD for receiver B. I don't know how the receiving yards would officially break down for each receiver, but the basics of getting the TDs (and how the QB given passing yard credit for how far the receivers ran) is clear. So, let's just say receiver B is the QB. There we go. I'm all for criticizing QBs getting passing yard credit for yards after catch. But if you're not confused by that happening, then this isn't confusing (at least in terms of the "why isn't it a rushing TD?").
It’s a hook and lateral with a completion to a WR lateraled back to the QB, what is so hard to understand about this? The NFL rule is both easy to understand and logically correct.
I felt like I was going crazy watching that. The existing scoring is so intuitive. Replace Josh Allen with another player getting the pitch and that player getting the TD would be a non-story.
Or just ignore the pitch and imagine that Cooper magically turned into josh Allen lmao cooper got the catch plus the first chunk of yards, then Allen has the ball and get the rest + the TD. In terms of stats, laterals arent a thing so to speak, theyre irrelevant so for stat keeping, Cooper basically did magically turn into Allen They really messed up by talking about the definition of passing/rushing plays in regards to penalties and applying it to stats. Thats what really confused them
In fairness, they did explicitly say that this play/scoring "hasn't been confusing as much as it's been annoying." It's a philosophical roast, not an explanation.
You’re always talking of ‘the very first play’ as a passing play, so it’s a passing TD. What if the down started like a flea flicker? So the ‘very first play’ is a rushing play. Would it be a rushing TD even when there’s a pass into the endzone? I’m totally confused 😅
It sort of makes sense from the perspective of one of those end-of-game endless laterals that never works. But if the start of that play was a pass, completed, then the series of laterals occur, and it ends up in the end zone for a touchdown, then it's a passing touchdown, for the total yardage from the original line of scrimmage to the end zone. This also helps with adding up yardage for a drive, and NOT having to account for yards gained or lost within each of a potentially endless series of laterals. One pass attempted, one pass completed, one reception, one touchdown. Everything adds up cleanly without any loose ends.
I'm actually pretty okay with this. Essentially, if the offense makes a forward pass, and scores a touchdown without relinquishing possession (because an interception followed by a fumble recovery would be scored differently), it is considered a passing touchdown. If they did not make a forward pass, it's a rushing touchdown. That's the kind of clean, binary design that makes for an easily implemented system. If it WEREN'T scored like that, then in the Randy Moss crazy lateral play, the QB wouldn't have been credited with a passing touchdown, despite having completed this clutch Hail Mary, and that wouldn't feel good in exactly the way you guys are complaining about this one. The only reason this has you feeling a certain way is because the reception-lateral-touchdown sequence just happened to end with the QB scoring the touchdown. To Seth's point that if you were to look at the box score for the play, you wouldn't intuit what happened, I disagree: Allen completes a pass to Cooper: 1 reception, ~3 receiving yards Allen: no reception, 7 receiving yards, touchdown Understanding that without a fumble and recovery being recorded on the play, the ONLY way anyone other than Cooper (with his 1 reception) is picking up yards is via lateral (or hand-off, which is essentially just a zero distance lateral), there is no ambiguity as to what happened. If you understand how to read the box score, it tells you EXACTLY what happened. Literally the ONLY thing not captured in the scoring is if they ran in straight lines or scrambled forwards and back, which is something that is never accounted for in box scores.
Yeah the way its scored is way simpler than any version of giving Allen a rushing TD. Peoples main problem is Allen getting a receiving TD without a reception but receiving TD is a bit of misnomer. It really whoever crosses the goalline with ball on a play in which a forward pass is completed. 99.9% of the time is the same player who records the reception, which is why its called receiving TD, but it doesnt have to be. If it was called passing play TD, i dont think anyone would have a problem with how its scored. Cooper: 1 reception, 7yds Allen: 5 passing play yards, 1 passing play TD
AT 5:29 he says there can only be one passing play in a down. Is that correct? A second forward pass would be illegal and flagged but is it not still a second forward pass? The penalty might even be declined, for example if the second pass was intercepted.
a punt goes from your own 30 to the opponents 20 -- it's flown 60 yards through the air. the receiver runs forward to their own 30. your punt is recorded as 50 yards. the passing play doesn't end at the lateral -- like someone said later in the video, the pass started the play, so any runs from ensuing laterals are all part of the passing play. is there something wrong with me that this makes sense??
Completely agree. I dont know what theyre talking about when they mention the passing play ends when the receiver catches the ball and a running play starts, and thats where they start confusing themselves. Ive never once heard anything like that and the scoring makes 100% complete since if you just get rid of that I dont follow these guys very much, do they usually cover football? Theres another part where theyre debating what the scoring would be if the lateral was grabbed by the opposing team, debating whether its a fumble or interception. An interception can only occur on a forward pass before the offense catches the ball. Once Cooper makes a catch, theyre cant be an interception. And thats like very basic football stuff
@@atlas8884they are going by the nfl rulebook defining plays Their are 2 types of plays 1. A pass play like hail Mary or a running play like hafback dive. A play in this context meaning you come out in a formation and every player has a job 2. On a passing play for flag purposes once the catch is made it is no longer a pass play so things like Pass interference can no longer be called for something that happens after that moment and then is when the running play starts then all of the running flags can start applying. 2 different meaning of the same word in vary similar contexts It would be easier to say like the throwing portion of the play or the running portion of the play but they dont
so, amari cooper doesn't get any yards from this play? that seems wrong. also, the person who caught the pass didn't score a touchdown. that should mean there's no passing or receiving touchdown. the fact that a snap leads to both a catch and a touchdown doesn't require that a scoop & score (after a receiver fumbles) count as a passing touchdown. the lateral shouldn't be any different. like a fumble, the ball changes hands and a new running play starts; the resulting touchdown should be a running one. the lateral should be essentially treated as a handoff.* this would have two main benefits: passing touchdowns aren't conjured from thin air, and receivers' yards are recognized even if they then lateral to someone else. the main drawback is that a lateral that goes back, say, 5 yards starts the new runner with -5 running yards that they probably don't deserve. but that's how rushing yards from scrimmage work, as well, since yards are counted from scrimmage even if the handoff was several yards back. this seems relatively obvious to me, idk. *akin to how if a qb laterals right after the snap and the rb or whatever scores from that, the td is a rushing one
9:37 that is not accurate. If a QB passes the ball to a WR and the WR runs 10 yds and score it is a passing TD. That's the thing. Every yard gained after the reception are passing yards.
As a former pro player, coach, and referee, speaking on your comment about the soccer own goal: in a situation like the hockey goaltender directly striking the puck into his own net, if that occurs in soccer, it is considered an own goal. However, if the attacker shoots the ball and it is going in the direction of the goal, and it is deflected by a defender, and the ball subsequently enters the goal, the goal is credited to the shooter, and not as an own goal. If however the ball is shot by an attacker and it was not going into the direction of the goal and the deflection changes the course of the ball towards the goal and the ball enters the goal, then it is considered an own goal. In regards to the Josh Allen touchdown, the NFL requires to have an accounting for the play from beginning to end, similar to baseball scorekeeping. In this case who threw the pass, who caught it, who scored, were there any laterals (or additional running plays as you mentioned). Statistics are paramount because this is from where player bonuses are calculated as well as records that could potentially decide who gets inducted (and when,) into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH. It is bookkeeping, plain and simple; an accounting of the plays that occur from scrimmage throughout the entirety of the game. I really enjoyed the video and explanation of the situation. Blessings! P.S. : Y'all should also get into a video of players who threw a touchdown pass, caught a touchdown pass, and ran the ball in for a touchdown. Allen, most recently in this video, Christian McCaffrey (49ers in 2022 vs. Rams), Walter Payton (Bears in 1978 vs Vikings) amongst many others. Blessings!
If anything, looking at the box score where under Buffalo Receiving there's Josh Allen listed as 0 REC, 7 YDS, but then AVG 0. Normal computers would throw a fit when you divide by zero, but the NFL stat computers need a special rule so dividing by 0 gives 0.
@@eth3792 #DIV/0! (as wasted effort at work goes, putting "=7/0" into Excel to make sure I got the error syntax right for a RUclips comment, I submit to the award committee for such things.)
People are just confused because the lateral went back to the QB. If it was lateraled to another receiver no one would have questioned it. This is not really confusing...
Exactly, it looks weird because a QB threw a TD pass and on the same play got a receiving TD and they think that a you have to catch a pass to get receiving yards and I can understand how they could think that but receiving yards are really just any yards gained on a passing play and this was a passing play
This is how this has always been ruled in the NFL. The play was the result of a pass, someone just needs credit for the yards. So, Josh Allen had 0 targets for 0 catches, 6 yards and a receiving TD.
@TheAllhailben7 yeab it's still wrong. Not saying they don't rule it that way. But they shouldn't. It's not the same as the ball being batted back to the qb
Great play and discussion. I think the Passing TD that gets run into the EZ is an important example. That’s a pass play that becomes a rush play but I think we all want it to be a passing TD (for QB stats as noted). That seems why if there’s a TD on a passing play there needs to be a receiving TD. Could handle it other ways but is such an amazing play. Go Bills
8:20 So what is then a passing touchdown? How is this any less a passing touchdown than a reciever catching the ball and doing some moves and running 80 yards for a touchdown?
Because the situation you described involves a forward pass to the person who scored a TD. In this scenario, Allen threw the ball to Cooper, who lateraled it back to him and he ran it for a TD. Laterals are recorded as fumbles, not passes.
@@goldenstatewarriors9418A lateral isnt a fumble, it is a deliberate play. A failed lateral becomes a fumble. This was just good play by the offense to extend the play, no different than if Cooper managed to break those tackles somehow. As to it not being a passing touchdown, without that pass there is no touchdown because they aren't in a position for the latteral. The sinplest and more reliable option is: if a touchdown is scored on a play involving a pass, the passer gets a passing touchdown and the scorer gets a receiving touchdown.
@@bluemori2822 this doesn't change context *here*, but intercepted laterals *are* scored as fumbles, as a fumble is defined as any loss of possession. It touching the ground just means it's still live. From a scoring perspective, a laterals are separated in an effort to track successful control and intent.
@@ghandiwonFailed laterals are fumbles. Just like a failed hand off to an RB. Successful ones are not. But even if Cooper fumbled the ball and recovered it to score a TD, its still a passing TD. And it should be since the pass enabled the TD
Hook and lateral (Hook & Ladder) for a TD QB gets a passing TD, and passing yardage for the full length of the play. First guy to catch the ball gets a reception, and receiving yards up to the point where his lateral is caught by another player. Guy who catches the lateral and runs it in for a TD gets receiving yards from the point where he caught the lateral to the goal line, and a receiving TD, but doesn't get a reception. If you have multiple laterals on a passing play, then each guy who gets a lateral gets receiving yards from the point he caught the lateral, to the point another player catches a lateral from him.
I think a lot of this discourse is silly just because if the recipient of the lateral was ANYONE other than Josh Allen, people would have no issue about the receiving TD being credited to that player. Josh Allen threw a pass which, at the end of the down, resulted in a touchdown. After the receiver made the reception, it was lateraled back to another player, who just happened to be Josh Allen, who completed the receiving play by ending the play in a touchdown. I think the scorecard breaks people’s brains at first but when you isolate everything in the down into its smallest parts, the segments make sense.
Yeah this entire “debate” stems from people having a fundamental misunderstanding of what a passing TD or receiving TD really is A receiving TD isnt when someone recieves the ball in the endzone, its when someone crosses the goalline with possession of the ball in a play in which a legal forward pass was completed Then a passing TD is given to someone who completes a legal forward pass during a play which results in a TD.
Has Josh Allen ever had a reception? More specifically, what I'm asking is; does Josh Allen have an infinite number of receiving yards per catch? 7 receiving yards, a receiving TD, and 0 catches is a wild stat line for seemingly infinite reasons. That said; the NFL has it right here, I think. They lay it out in kind of a confusing way; but I agree with the premise that Josh Allen gets a TD pass, he threw the ball to a receiver that should get the reception, and the play resulted in a TD that just so happened to be Josh taking it in. Just because the stats that it produces are unique doesn't mean we should get rid of them. Without weird stats; this channel probably wouldn't exist. The play was unique in and of itself, and the stat-line reflects that; we should celebrate that as something cool and done right.
The only thing I might add is I might say we have the technology to start tracking lateral attempts and the results of them; because some guys like Randy definitely used the lateral to greater effect than a lot of others. I'm at least a little curious enough to see who stands where in the "greatest lateral-ers of all time"
He caught a 12 yard touchdown pass in 2020. Which means his career receiving stats are 1 reception, 19 yards, 19.0 yards per reception, a long (longest reception) of 12 yards, and 2 receiving touchdowns.
@ Well, it takes the infinity out of his stat-line but 2:1 TD receiving TDs to reception and an average yards per reception longer than his longest reception are both still quite exceptional.
It's a pass play. Therefore the TD scored on that play is a receiving touchdown, and it's credited to the player who had possession of the ball in the endzone. OTOH, did Josh Allen catch a forward pass? No. Therefore, he is not credited with receiving a forward pass. Y'all are making this WAY more complicated than it needs to be.
"But this player has 0 receptions and 1 receiving TD! That's confusing!" Not really. That stat line clearly indicates that he scored a touchdown on a passing play, but was not the player who caught the forward pass. Therefore, the ball must have changed possession during the play. That's not confusing; it's exactly what happened.
I generally agree with this, and the first time I saw how the play was scored I thought “this makes sense and doesn’t really need any more explanation”. But the idea that “because there was a pass at some point in the down means that everything that happens afterwards needs to be scored like a passing play” feels slightly SLIGHTLY arbitrary to me, even if I agree with it. And so I’d also be totally understanding if they ever decided to change the rule to score anything that occurs after a reception + lateral as rushing yards and a rushing touchdown.
@@LegandsandLabyrinths Agreed. Also in the alternative proposed at the end of the video, you'd have the play recorded as Josh Allen having 0 carries for 7 rushing yards and 1 rushing TD which also wouldn't make sense. You've just traded "0 reception, 1 rec TD" for "0 carry, 1 rush TD" which is equally illogical. Giving Allen a carry on the play also doesn't make sense because then you no longer have the correct total number of plays in the game.
I have learnt a whole lot solely from this channel about mostly American sports, Football included. And have understood every single one of them, even Weird Rules... but this whole concept made me feel like I didn't have a grasp on the English language. I too, am like Seth, annoyed 😅
I can get behind the logic of "catch plus reception for X yards, followed by Y yards rush for a rushing touchdown". Except then you pretty quickly run into a situation where you have to figure out what that means for yards after a catch. If a receiver catches a pass 10 yards downfield then runs an additional 60 yards for touchdown that should be a 70 yard TD pass and reception. But if we follow this logic out then maybe it should be thought of as a 10 yard reception followed by a 60 yard rushing touchdown. Otherwise you have to setup the rule such that "all yards after a forward pass are receiving yards, unless the ball becomes live again through a fumble lateral or hand-off. At which point you open up the door for weird situations involving bobbled catches. I think the current setup results in some weird stats but it's the easiest version to record accurately.
I agree with Seth. It should be counted as a pass from Allen, reception by Cooper, and rushing TD by Allen. If the NFL needs equal number of passing and receiving TDs, this is not problem because It is scored as a rushing TD
I personally think this makes perfect sense, You can't have a passing play and rushing play on the same down. If the ball is thrown for a forward pass, all yards gained are receiving yards, all td's scored are receiving touchdowns.
this drove me crazy when it first happened and i pointlessly argued with a bunch of people online about it, which helped me come to this realization- the issue is that we colloquially speak regularly of "TD catches" but thats not a thing. the stat is receiving TDs, and a receiving TD is not what what you think it is. it is something like being the player who brings the ball into the end zone on a passing play,, it has nothing to do with catching the ball. now what is perhaps the real problem is that on a rushing play only one person gets credited a TD but on a passing play 2 people do, even if the pass is a 2 yard screen thats followed by 3 laterals and a 60 yard run. or maybe the whole idea that there should be a seperate set of stats for rushing plays and passing plays is the problem. or maybe TD pass needs to not be a thing. when a TD is scored, credit it to the person who carries the ball into the endzone. but we all love to talk about how many TD passes a Qb has.
10:28 Re: the basketball scenario: the actual rule is the last person to touch the ball in the offensive team. It just happened in a women’s college game this week.
The NFL has this correct if there was a forward pass then it is recorded as a passing play If they change it so that it only counts if you catch a forward pass then anything that isn't a ball caught in the endzone is a rushing touchdown.
In the MLB with the new extra innings runner rule, you can throw a perfect game and still get the loss. After 9 innings, the team without a baserunner gets a runner on second and then advances via passed ball or wild pitch twice.
@@josephtamarez2105honestly… I weirdly agree with this joke. One of them caught it and the other got it in the end zone. If you’re not gunna call it a rushing TD, it’s a half receiving TD. Or an assisted receiving TD?
What about that infamous play from last year’s Chiefs-Bills game that was taken away when Kadarious Toney lined up offsides? If that had been upheld, would you have Kelce with the reception, but Toney with the yards and the receiving touchdown?
The logic of a Josh Allen rushing TD also hints at the idea that passing yards and TDs should only count the ball being in the air. Once the receiver takes possession, his YAC and TDs run into the endzone eould count as rushing.
I think an important point is that the passing and rushing plays within an down are defined in the rulebook for the purpose of rules enforcement. The differences between being in a passing play and rushing are crucial for the interpretation of rules such as pass interference, roughing the passer, defensive holding, targeting, and whatever the definition of a catch is.
4:21 Basketball has an analogous problem. NFL requires that every passing touchdown results in a receiving touchdown as well. NBA requires that every missed shot has a rebound. If the ball goes out of bounds, it is recorded as a "team rebound".
In hockey, it's possible for a player to score a goal without touching the puck. In extremely rare cases, teams have won faceoffs and then ended up putting the puck in their own net without the other team ever touching the puck. In such cases, the other team's center (who LOST the faceoff) gets credit for the goal. The best/worst of these happened on November 20, 1982 in Edmonton. Vancouver was leading 3-2, but had a faceoff in their zone with 11 or 12 seconds left in the third period. Vancouver wins the draw, with the puck going to defenseman Lars Lindgren along the side boards. Lindgren tries to move the puck along the end boards behind the Vancouver net, but somehow picks the corner on his own startled goaltender to tie the game at 3 with 9 seconds left. Mark Messier got credit for the goal. I know the game was broadcast on CBC on Hockey Night in Canada, but I have no idea if CBC still has any archive footage of the game or the goal.
Two days ago, this actually happened! Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres took a shot at an empty net and hit the post. Ryan McLeod rushed to the rebound but before he touched the puck, his stick was slashed. This is normally a penalty shot, but as the net was empty, McLeod was awarded a goal outright (which was switched back and forth between him and Thompson, but in the end was given to him for a hat trick).
I wholeheartedly agree that Allen should have been credited with 4 passing yards and a 7 yard rushing TD because Cooper threw a lateral, which is considered a rushing play.
5:22 so if the quarterback is 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage, throws, gets it batted back to him without the ball ever crossing the line, can he throw forward again?
You should deep dive to find if there was any instances of a run being scored in baseball against a pitcher that pitched a no hitter. I had the privilege of being the PA announcer in a college baseball game back in 1996, where going into the 9th inning, our pitcher, Ryan Vogelsong was no hitting our opponent. In that 9th inning, there was a "hit," by the opposing team. Being in the score keepers box, I then got to hear the very animated argument between the 2 teams scorekeepers as well as the league score keeper as to whether the play was a "hit" or an "error" on the third baseman. I'm not a baseball fan in the slightest, so I didn't really see the point of the argument. I just figured hey, we won, that's all that matters.....WELL.....apparently no hitters are more important that I had ever known. It literally took them about 20 minutes of back and forth trying to convince the official scorekeeper of their relative arguments. I think it was finally ruled an error, preserving the no hitter.
It's kinda simple: Throwing TD = you threw the ball and it ended up a TD. Receiving TD = you took a thrown ball in for a TD. Josh just so happened to be responsible for the bookends of this play and earned both. It's not a rushing TD because then any hook and ladder play is a 'rush' and not a passing play.
I'm also sure that much of the reason for it to be defined this way is not just gambling, but contract incentives, where players get bonus for hitting certain marks.
It's one of those things were it's nebulous and before fantasy football no one cared. TD passes / receptions are the most out there stats in general since unless the ball was caught in the end zone the amount of credit the pass should be given is drastically different. Hand the ball to running back, rushing touchdown. Throw the ball 1 inch forward to same running back, receiving touchdown. It's arbitrary at the edges but a lot of things are.
This falls under the category of Hook and Ladder play which has clear defined scoring rules in the NFL. Jamo Williams had one a few weeks later as well. The QB gets the passing yds and the passing TD (if applicable), the first player gets the reception, the second player gets the receiving yds and the TD (if applicable.) In this case the QB was the QB and the second player, so he also gets the passing yds, the receiving yds and the both TDs it makes sense it's just weird because a third person wasn't involved.
The issue with considering it a rushing TD and rush yardage is that yards after catch are still considered passing yardage. The NFL would have to redefine YAC as rushing yardage for the record keeping to be cohesive. This is essentially YAC, just with a lateral in the mix. OR they would have to redefine any successful lateral as a running play and purely rush yardage. Go Bills!
Holy crap I just realized my Madden game maybe didn't glitch how I thought it did. Every once in a long blue moon I'll randomly see a receiver who has a receiving TD without any receptions and thinking that obviously can't be possible the game must just have glitched or something... however what's happening is the guy with the TD is receiving a lateral and scoring and then just not catching any other passes the rest of the game... amazing.
Josh wasn’t there to help block, he was in the vicinity because he threw a bad pass and was heading that way to stop the pick 6, I’m paraphrasing but his words.
Here's a weird stat line from week 9, Jaylen Waddle had 2 receptions, -4 receiving yards, and 1 TD. The -4 yards are the result of Miami having to lateral the ball and Waddle was the last player to receive a lateral
4:20 it's like double-entry accounting, if you're not careful you get another enron
as a CPA I agree. Gotta have a debit and credit.
enron mentioned 🗣️
A touchdown is worth 12 points now. And after the extra point attempt, you get another extra point attempt.
Lolol. I came here to make this comment
By that logic, couldn't you say any passing play that results in a TD that isn't caught in the endzone is a rushing TD? Because the passing play ended when the ball was caught and the receiver ran the rest of the way?
omg, that's true, I hate logic now
this comment makes me so glad we made this. yes. logic stands.
As a compromise you could make it so that ONLY a lateral starts a new running play with its own stats. The Randy Moss play gets recorded as a 46-yard passing play from Culpepper to Moss, Moss lateral to Williams at the 15, and then Williams gets a 15-yard rushing TD. Neither Moss nor Culpepper are awarded a TD in this case.
@eth3792 the qb loses his passing td?
They should change the logic so that "yard-after-catch" is part of the pass-and-catch play. When a lateral occurs, that's a handoff that results in a running play. That down should've been like a 2-yard pass and a 2-yard catch, and a running TD.
This is basically an improvised hook and ladder play. The Lions have run this to success this year leading to a similar weird stat line. Jahmyr Gibbs in week 3 against Arizona had 0 receptions, 20 receiving yards, and a TD.
Exactly, this isn't that rare people are just very stuck on it being a QB.
@@OON7because he also passed to himself
@@W-mans26no he passed to cooper who then latteraled it back to Allen for a touchdown so cooper got the catch and then Allen got all of the yards and the touchdown once he crossed the go a line it isn't that hard
@@peytonlamb3187 yeah that’s what I meant Allen passed it to himself but didn’t get the reception which is why it’s so weird
@@W-mans26 it is the same as every latteral ever the nfl words it so that only 1 person can make a catch since a catch is when a player receives a forward pass and since laterals are by definition not forward passes that wording prevents there from being 20 passes and receptions on those last play of the game plays with 20 laterals. If the play starts as a pass play then the play should end with someone getting receiving yards and a touchdown barring weird circumstances.
So Allen threw the ball to cooper.
Cooper made a catch
Cooper made a successful laterally back to Allen
Who then continued to advance his original pass into the endzone for a reviving touchdown since someone received a pass during the play and it was advanced into the endzone
"Seth Rosenthal, Update: Now Annoyed" was a great addition
Ayyy, weird rules is back. I've had children since the last one.
Is this really weird rules, though? No animations, different hosts, twice as long but half as interesting - this is just kind of a glorified podcast exerpt
@@nekkowe If it involves a weird rule and they break down in detail how the weird rule works, it's a duck. I mean, a Weird Rules.
I really want to make a comment here.... But... I know better.
@@finkelmana apparently not, because now you have my interest.
According to Thumbnail it's called Reframe.
As a former football statistician, the breakdown is important for talent evaluation and game planning, but it's also somewhat arbitrary. Coaches and scouts want things like Yards After Catch that are very hard to break down. When I read the NFL's statistics guidelines as a HS/College statistician, they were way more detailed than what we'd been using up to that point; I had to start watching live and then supplementing with game tape after the fact, and we had a team with multiple spotters and a recorder.
That last bit made the image of a guy playing the flute while three guys stand around him in case the flute gets too heavy pop up in my mind.
@@DrZaius3141 🤣 That's amazing!
Three completely random things I thought about as I read your post.
1. Your avatar is really cute, did you draw it yourself?
2. I feel like it's very rare to find someone who has a background as a former football statistician and also has a cute anime avatar. I would think the overlap of those two types of people is extremely thin.
3. Your youtube account is one of the oldest I have ever seen. Made only a year after RUclips launched.
@@xXUnoriginalNameXx33Meygaera 1) I made this avatar off a picrew a few years back that I can no longer find
2) I'm pretty weird :). I love math and stories, and sports has math and stories, and emergent stories that you only see when you look at the math.
3) Yeah, I'm pretty old. Also my username is a handle I stopped using not long afterwards. But if I stopped using this account, I'd lose my grandfathered pricing on YT Premium/YT Music I have from when I was a beta subscriber to Google Music.
In 1962, Baltimore Colts receiver Bake Turner finished with 1 reception and 111 receiving yards. He gained 37 yards on one play after teammate RC Owens caught a pass an lateraled to Turner. Later, Turner caught a 74-yard TD Pass.
YES! Came here to add this one... it's a gem!
I think reframing how one looks at receiving yards it makes logical sense. Receiving yards is the yardage of the pass + the run after the catch. In most cases this doesn’t matter since whoever caught it is usually the runner. In this case Josh Allen was the runner, but it still occurred after the initial catch by Cooper so Allen’s yardage should be marked as run after catch and thus fall under receiving yards.
100% this, theyre getting hung up on it because its called receiving yards and Allen never gets a reception. But the term receiving yards is a tad misleading
It was basically an unintentional hook-and-ladder. So the easy comparison is the Lions vs 49ers. Goff 1yd pass to St. Brown (1 Rec/1 rec yd), lateral to J. Williams 41 yds TD (0 Rec/41 rec yds/1 rec TD).
Or Don Strock to Duriel Harris to Tony Nathan in the 1981 AFC Playoffs.
@@urbangorilla33Or 2003's River City Relay: Aaron Brooks to Donte Stallworth to Michael Lewis to Deuce McCallister to Jerome Pathon for the TD
Intent does not matter.
“Here we go again with this f*cking story…”
-Eric Andre
Brad Johnson did it WITH the Vikings. I was at that game live. Nobody understood what happened in my area until we watched it on the Jumbotron
Haha, I was so confused for a second hand had to go back to be sure of what I had heard.
this finishing with a rocket league discussion is the best way it could've finished. great episode
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I'm impressed that they went nearly the entire video without using the term "lateral", before finally referring to it during the Culpepper to Moss comparison. The NFL rule on laterals is that a lateral pass does not count as a reception; only the player who initially catches the quarterback's pass is credited with a reception, while any subsequent players receiving a lateral only get receiving yards from the point of the lateral onwards.
5:19 is the first use of the term "lateral"
I think that makes sense. I don't see why this is so weird but I do enjoy seeing them break it down
I kinda disagree here....I genuinely don't see why it's such an issue that it's not a rushing touchdown. Josh Allen throws the ball, therefore it's a pass play. Josh Allen did not catch the ball, so he doesn't get a reception. Josh Allen ran the ball in for the touchdown, so it's a touchdown on a pass play (receiving touchdown).
Something isn't going to be quite right here. You'll either have a pass that doesn't have a receiving touchdown or you'll have a rushing touchdown that occurs on a passing play. If we go with the latter then all of a sudden we won't attribute the Randy Moss lateral play to the QB? That seems unfair.
as his manager, i think seth just wants to be difficult
-will
It was a lateral though. Laterals are not passes. This should have never been a pass/catch because it was a lateral.
@@ThePrufessathis is incorrect. Hook and ladder or hitch and pitch is a passing touchdown, instead of having a third player involved with the pitch or ladder portion it was the qb receiving the ball.
@@ThePrufessathe first one was a pass, it was forward from his spot.
@trentgarton639 OBVIOUSLY I'm not talking about the first one
Bake Turner averaged 111 yards per reception in 1962.
He had one catch for 74 yards and a touchdown, he also took one lateral and had 37 additional receiving yards on it.
Video came out juuuust before another weird NHL example happened, a Buffalo Sabres player, Ryan McLeod scored a hat trick against the Carolina Hurricanes with the completion of the hat trick not having a shot on goal because he was slashed on a breakaway, which would normally award him a penalty shot, but the Carolina net was empty so in that case the goal is just awarded to the player that was on a breakaway without giving them a shot on goal.
Another fun fact: Buffalo had 1 goal with 0 shots on goal in that period.
Bonitto intercepted a lateral and ran it for a defensive TD, but it was considered a fumble rather than an interception (pick 6) because it was not a forward pass.
Likewise Chandler Jones of the Raiders vs the Patriots in 2022.
A defensive touchdown is still a touchdown right 😂
Brett's first non-interception completion was to himself. In 1991 he went 0-4 with 2 INTs in Atlanta
Since you brought it up… in Rocket League, if a team own goals, and the opposing team somehow never touches the ball at any point between the kickoff and goal, it shows ‘blue/orange goal’, and no one player is awarded a goal.
Also, if you are awarded a goal when an opponent own goals, if your touch wasn’t a shot, the scoreboard will show a goal without recording a shot.
This is the most Josh Allen play of all time
First QB in NFL history
@ One of the players of all time 🔥
None of this is new. This is how they've always scored laterals. Think of your standard hook and ladder (as much as those can be standard) which is exactly the same as this, just this one includes the QB and he had no other receptions in the stat book. Jameson Williams had a TD similar to this a few weeks later where one receiver (I think it was Amon-Ra) caught the ball and lateralled it to Jamo sweeping under him to take it up the sideline for a TD. That's a reception and the initial yards for the first receiver and like 20 more yards, a TD, but no reception for Jamo. No one noticed it looking weird in the stat book because he had other receptions.
This is my take: A recieving touchdown must be recieved in the end zone. Receivig yards and Passing yards are credited from the line of scrimage to the point of reception. Yards after catch are rushing yards.
It feels like you defined their idea on scoring in just the sentence "Down not a play". Everything that takes place in the down is recorded as a passing down. the individual plays are categorized as running plays in a passing down (YAC, Receiving Yards, etc.) but they would all still have their own subcategories in a passing down. Rushing stats would be for a rushing down. It totally makes sense how they score it based on the premise you gave in the video its just confusing to speak out to another person but everything seems to start from the question is it a running down or a passing down. Then the stat tree breaksdown the play from there haha.
As a Bills fan I KNEW you guys were gonna talk about this play as soon as it happened and I saw how they recorded it lmao
So clearly a "passing touchdown" does not mean "a touchdown on a pass." After all, if you catch a pass in the end zone, sure, that's a passing touchdown, but _also_ if you catch a pass not in the end zone, and the passing play ends while a running play starts, and then you run the ball into the end zone, that's _still a passing TD._ So it doesn't matter which play is happening when you enter the end zone. All that matters is whether the down contained a legal forward pass. If the down contains a passing play and a touchdown, then that is a passing touchdown, regardless of whether the ball was run into the end zone or thrown into the end zone. I actually think that makes sense and matches the way most people talk about passing TDs.
It only gets weird when a different person is credited with the catch and the TD, but hey, that happens sometimes. This is hardly the first time a person received a pass, lateraled to anther player, and the second player scored. This play only differs in that the person receiving the lateral was also the passer, but that shouldn't lead to a different special ruleset just for that one eventuality.
Yeah theyre working under the assumption that names passing TD and receiving yards are perfect descriptions for what theyre are but thats not true.
The names scored on a play containing a legal forward pass TDs or yards gained during a play containing a legal forward pass dont quite roll off the tongue so they were simplified to passing TDs and receiving yards
"Why? What's gonna happen? Y2K?"
Hilarious line
As a person who basically never watches football, I am astounded by how rare this seems to be. A QB passes the ball to a receiver and then gets it back. I just can't fathom that sequence of events being that rare in the entire history of the game.
I'm always surprised how rare laterals are in football despite being so useful in rugby.
I guess it's because it's more valuable for a player to be blocking than in a position to receive a pass?
Most of the time the QBs don’t throw near to them, and even fewer of those times stay connected to the play at hand.
The QB getting the ball back is likely not uncommon, especially on game ending plays when there are a bunch of laterals. A QB in that situation may eventually end up with the ball. The uncommon/rare part is that it ends in a touchdown.
Usually the qb isn't close to the receiver to get the ball back, and most times you don't want them to be near them
@@Tomwithnonumbers I think this can be attributed to the risk of a fumble and losing possession in football is so much more than in rugby. Rugby is much more free flowing and possession can change hands multiple times in a short sequence. Losing possession in football can be devastating, especially if you are near either end zone. In football, by lateraling, you're risking possession for possibly only a minimal gain in yardage.
Laterals are super weird if you think about it. If the ball hits the ground during a lateral, it's considered a fumble instead and if it's picked up and advanced it's a fumble recovery with fumble recovery yards.
And if a "lateral" were caught mid-air by a defender, wouldn't it count as an interception?
Nope, it's counted as a fumble. I don't remember the specific incident but a pick 6 was ruled as a fumble recovery for a TD at some point because it was some sort of double pass that was picked off.
At 10:02 "the first play was a passing play, therefore everything that comes next will be receiving" - that is how we do it at the college level. The same is true if the first play is a kick or punt return or an interception return.
In the case of the Amari Cooper/Josh Allen play, the original LOS was the SF7. Cooper advanced to about the SF3 but passed back to Allen at the SF8. Under NCAA rules, Cooper would get one reception for minus-1 yards. Allen would get no reception but 8 receiving yards and the receiving TD in addition to a completed TD pass for 7 yards. If you add it all up, it makes sense: one attempt, one completion, one reception, 7 passing/receiving yards and one passing/receiving TD. By college rules, no part of the overall play was a running play, so there should be no rushing yards.
Also FWIW, you guys have it partially correct when it comes to a basketball player shooting in the wrong goal. It largely comes down to intent. If someone just brainfarts and scores in their own bucket, that will go in as a team FG for the team that gets awarded the points. The OS will make a note of it somewhere in the margin of the scorebook. However, if the wrong-goal bucket is accidental (e.g. someone taps in the ball while trying to get a defensive rebound) or incidental (e.g. someone trying to block a shot ends up deflecting it INTO the goal), then you are correct - it goes to the nearest player (in the example of the attempted rebound) or the original shooter (in the example of the attempted block).
The basketball discussion at 10:20 is great timing given the own goal from the end of the Knicks-Pistons game last night. Mikal Bridges blocked Cade Cunningham's layup off the backbooard but KAT's delayed block attempt tipped it into the rim. Official play-by-play just says Cade made and attempted a layup over Bridges, who doesn't get credit for a clutch block because the shot attempt, block, and own goal are regarded as one play.
Former Cardinals CB Marcus Turner’s 1990 stat line: 1 INT, 70 yards, 2 INT TDs
His other INT TD was a lateral from a teammate’s INT.
According to Pro Football Reference, the River City Relay was scored a similar way: Jerome Pathon 21 yard pass from Aaron Brooks. That 21 yard pass can only be the initial forward pass to Donte Stallworth, however, since Pathon caught the last lateral at the JAX 24 yard line.
Came for the football explanation, stayed for the Rocket League references.
If laterals become more common i would really like to see the rules, descriptions, and stats around them be refined
I don't really see what is confusing about this (or at least what is confusing about it when you spend a moment to think of how passing is measured in football). If a QB makes a screen pass behind the line of scrimmage but the receiver goes for a 40 yard TD run, that's counted as 40 passing yards and a passing TD. Doesn't matter that the ball only went 5 yards through the air and the spot it was caught was behind the line of scrimmage (and would have been a loss if it was downed there) - the QB still gets passing yard credit for all the positive yards the receiver ran and also got a passing TD credit (despite the fact that the receiver basically did everything to run it in). Take the exact same play, but say receiver A (who caught the screen) gets tackled and laterals to receiver B, and receiver B runs in for a touchdown. It's still 40 passing yards and a passing TD for the QB, a reception for receiver A, and a reception TD for receiver B. I don't know how the receiving yards would officially break down for each receiver, but the basics of getting the TDs (and how the QB given passing yard credit for how far the receivers ran) is clear. So, let's just say receiver B is the QB. There we go. I'm all for criticizing QBs getting passing yard credit for yards after catch. But if you're not confused by that happening, then this isn't confusing (at least in terms of the "why isn't it a rushing TD?").
I love that Will brings some hockey to the channel with that Lindgren goal
It’s a hook and lateral with a completion to a WR lateraled back to the QB, what is so hard to understand about this? The NFL rule is both easy to understand and logically correct.
I felt like I was going crazy watching that. The existing scoring is so intuitive. Replace Josh Allen with another player getting the pitch and that player getting the TD would be a non-story.
Or just ignore the pitch and imagine that Cooper magically turned into josh Allen lmao cooper got the catch plus the first chunk of yards, then Allen has the ball and get the rest + the TD. In terms of stats, laterals arent a thing so to speak, theyre irrelevant so for stat keeping, Cooper basically did magically turn into Allen
They really messed up by talking about the definition of passing/rushing plays in regards to penalties and applying it to stats. Thats what really confused them
Ngl, this is a pretty simple thing to understand, and all this “explanation” did was to purposely make it more complicated than it is.
In fairness, they did explicitly say that this play/scoring "hasn't been confusing as much as it's been annoying." It's a philosophical roast, not an explanation.
@GregMcNeish Fair, but the whole bit about the pass play being over and a run play starting is highly misleading and misinformed.
Cynical read: they're dragging it out to over ten minutes so the youtube recommendations algo likes the video more
You’re always talking of ‘the very first play’ as a passing play, so it’s a passing TD. What if the down started like a flea flicker? So the ‘very first play’ is a rushing play. Would it be a rushing TD even when there’s a pass into the endzone? I’m totally confused 😅
It sort of makes sense from the perspective of one of those end-of-game endless laterals that never works. But if the start of that play was a pass, completed, then the series of laterals occur, and it ends up in the end zone for a touchdown, then it's a passing touchdown, for the total yardage from the original line of scrimmage to the end zone. This also helps with adding up yardage for a drive, and NOT having to account for yards gained or lost within each of a potentially endless series of laterals. One pass attempted, one pass completed, one reception, one touchdown. Everything adds up cleanly without any loose ends.
The "plays" you are referencing is for penalty enforcement and not for recordkeeping / stats.
I'm actually pretty okay with this. Essentially, if the offense makes a forward pass, and scores a touchdown without relinquishing possession (because an interception followed by a fumble recovery would be scored differently), it is considered a passing touchdown. If they did not make a forward pass, it's a rushing touchdown. That's the kind of clean, binary design that makes for an easily implemented system. If it WEREN'T scored like that, then in the Randy Moss crazy lateral play, the QB wouldn't have been credited with a passing touchdown, despite having completed this clutch Hail Mary, and that wouldn't feel good in exactly the way you guys are complaining about this one. The only reason this has you feeling a certain way is because the reception-lateral-touchdown sequence just happened to end with the QB scoring the touchdown.
To Seth's point that if you were to look at the box score for the play, you wouldn't intuit what happened, I disagree:
Allen completes a pass to Cooper: 1 reception, ~3 receiving yards
Allen: no reception, 7 receiving yards, touchdown
Understanding that without a fumble and recovery being recorded on the play, the ONLY way anyone other than Cooper (with his 1 reception) is picking up yards is via lateral (or hand-off, which is essentially just a zero distance lateral), there is no ambiguity as to what happened. If you understand how to read the box score, it tells you EXACTLY what happened. Literally the ONLY thing not captured in the scoring is if they ran in straight lines or scrambled forwards and back, which is something that is never accounted for in box scores.
Yeah the way its scored is way simpler than any version of giving Allen a rushing TD.
Peoples main problem is Allen getting a receiving TD without a reception but receiving TD is a bit of misnomer. It really whoever crosses the goalline with ball on a play in which a forward pass is completed. 99.9% of the time is the same player who records the reception, which is why its called receiving TD, but it doesnt have to be.
If it was called passing play TD, i dont think anyone would have a problem with how its scored.
Cooper: 1 reception, 7yds
Allen: 5 passing play yards, 1 passing play TD
The down started with a pass and the down didn’t end until he was in the endzone it kinda makes sense that it would be a passing TD.
AT 5:29 he says there can only be one passing play in a down. Is that correct? A second forward pass would be illegal and flagged but is it not still a second forward pass? The penalty might even be declined, for example if the second pass was intercepted.
a punt goes from your own 30 to the opponents 20 -- it's flown 60 yards through the air. the receiver runs forward to their own 30. your punt is recorded as 50 yards.
the passing play doesn't end at the lateral -- like someone said later in the video, the pass started the play, so any runs from ensuing laterals are all part of the passing play.
is there something wrong with me that this makes sense??
Completely agree. I dont know what theyre talking about when they mention the passing play ends when the receiver catches the ball and a running play starts, and thats where they start confusing themselves.
Ive never once heard anything like that and the scoring makes 100% complete since if you just get rid of that
I dont follow these guys very much, do they usually cover football? Theres another part where theyre debating what the scoring would be if the lateral was grabbed by the opposing team, debating whether its a fumble or interception. An interception can only occur on a forward pass before the offense catches the ball. Once Cooper makes a catch, theyre cant be an interception. And thats like very basic football stuff
@@atlas8884they are going by the nfl rulebook defining plays
Their are 2 types of plays
1. A pass play like hail Mary or a running play like hafback dive. A play in this context meaning you come out in a formation and every player has a job
2. On a passing play for flag purposes once the catch is made it is no longer a pass play so things like Pass interference can no longer be called for something that happens after that moment and then is when the running play starts then all of the running flags can start applying.
2 different meaning of the same word in vary similar contexts
It would be easier to say like the throwing portion of the play or the running portion of the play but they dont
so, amari cooper doesn't get any yards from this play? that seems wrong. also, the person who caught the pass didn't score a touchdown. that should mean there's no passing or receiving touchdown. the fact that a snap leads to both a catch and a touchdown doesn't require that a scoop & score (after a receiver fumbles) count as a passing touchdown. the lateral shouldn't be any different. like a fumble, the ball changes hands and a new running play starts; the resulting touchdown should be a running one. the lateral should be essentially treated as a handoff.* this would have two main benefits: passing touchdowns aren't conjured from thin air, and receivers' yards are recognized even if they then lateral to someone else. the main drawback is that a lateral that goes back, say, 5 yards starts the new runner with -5 running yards that they probably don't deserve. but that's how rushing yards from scrimmage work, as well, since yards are counted from scrimmage even if the handoff was several yards back. this seems relatively obvious to me, idk.
*akin to how if a qb laterals right after the snap and the rb or whatever scores from that, the td is a rushing one
9:37 that is not accurate. If a QB passes the ball to a WR and the WR runs 10 yds and score it is a passing TD. That's the thing. Every yard gained after the reception are passing yards.
As a former pro player, coach, and referee, speaking on your comment about the soccer own goal: in a situation like the hockey goaltender directly striking the puck into his own net, if that occurs in soccer, it is considered an own goal. However, if the attacker shoots the ball and it is going in the direction of the goal, and it is deflected by a defender, and the ball subsequently enters the goal, the goal is credited to the shooter, and not as an own goal. If however the ball is shot by an attacker and it was not going into the direction of the goal and the deflection changes the course of the ball towards the goal and the ball enters the goal, then it is considered an own goal.
In regards to the Josh Allen touchdown, the NFL requires to have an accounting for the play from beginning to end, similar to baseball scorekeeping. In this case who threw the pass, who caught it, who scored, were there any laterals (or additional running plays as you mentioned). Statistics are paramount because this is from where player bonuses are calculated as well as records that could potentially decide who gets inducted (and when,) into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH. It is bookkeeping, plain and simple; an accounting of the plays that occur from scrimmage throughout the entirety of the game. I really enjoyed the video and explanation of the situation. Blessings!
P.S. : Y'all should also get into a video of players who threw a touchdown pass, caught a touchdown pass, and ran the ball in for a touchdown. Allen, most recently in this video, Christian McCaffrey (49ers in 2022 vs. Rams), Walter Payton (Bears in 1978 vs Vikings) amongst many others. Blessings!
"only one player can catch a pass, makes sense?"
"sure..."
"sure..."
loll
Was funny to watch Allen et al have this conversation on the sidelines immediately after the play.
If anything, looking at the box score where under Buffalo Receiving there's Josh Allen listed as 0 REC, 7 YDS, but then AVG 0. Normal computers would throw a fit when you divide by zero, but the NFL stat computers need a special rule so dividing by 0 gives 0.
Waiting to see the "AVG ∞"
@@eth3792 #DIV/0!
(as wasted effort at work goes, putting "=7/0" into Excel to make sure I got the error syntax right for a RUclips comment, I submit to the award committee for such things.)
It’s pretty typical for coders to insert zero checks into their functions that return a predetermined result if the inputs call for a divide by zero.
This format is Top-Notch. Kudos to all!
People are just confused because the lateral went back to the QB. If it was lateraled to another receiver no one would have questioned it. This is not really confusing...
Exactly, it looks weird because a QB threw a TD pass and on the same play got a receiving TD and they think that a you have to catch a pass to get receiving yards and I can understand how they could think that but receiving yards are really just any yards gained on a passing play and this was a passing play
That was not a pass reception. That was a lateral
Which is why Cooper gets the reception, not Allen.
This is how this has always been ruled in the NFL. The play was the result of a pass, someone just needs credit for the yards. So, Josh Allen had 0 targets for 0 catches, 6 yards and a receiving TD.
@TheAllhailben7 yeab it's still wrong. Not saying they don't rule it that way. But they shouldn't. It's not the same as the ball being batted back to the qb
@victorhiggins2118 but they never ruled it a reception...
@TheAllhailben7 again ridiculous. His receiver clearly caught the ball.and lateraled
Great play and discussion. I think the Passing TD that gets run into the EZ is an important example. That’s a pass play that becomes a rush play but I think we all want it to be a passing TD (for QB stats as noted). That seems why if there’s a TD on a passing play there needs to be a receiving TD. Could handle it other ways but is such an amazing play. Go Bills
8:20 So what is then a passing touchdown?
How is this any less a passing touchdown than a reciever catching the ball and doing some moves and running 80 yards for a touchdown?
Because the situation you described involves a forward pass to the person who scored a TD. In this scenario, Allen threw the ball to Cooper, who lateraled it back to him and he ran it for a TD. Laterals are recorded as fumbles, not passes.
@@goldenstatewarriors9418 laterals are not recorded as fumbles. nothing is a fumble if it doesn’t touch the ground iirc
@@goldenstatewarriors9418A lateral isnt a fumble, it is a deliberate play. A failed lateral becomes a fumble. This was just good play by the offense to extend the play, no different than if Cooper managed to break those tackles somehow.
As to it not being a passing touchdown, without that pass there is no touchdown because they aren't in a position for the latteral.
The sinplest and more reliable option is: if a touchdown is scored on a play involving a pass, the passer gets a passing touchdown and the scorer gets a receiving touchdown.
@@bluemori2822 this doesn't change context *here*, but intercepted laterals *are* scored as fumbles, as a fumble is defined as any loss of possession. It touching the ground just means it's still live. From a scoring perspective, a laterals are separated in an effort to track successful control and intent.
@@ghandiwonFailed laterals are fumbles. Just like a failed hand off to an RB.
Successful ones are not.
But even if Cooper fumbled the ball and recovered it to score a TD, its still a passing TD. And it should be since the pass enabled the TD
Cade Cunningham should be an all star fr
Best of these episodes yet!
Hook and lateral (Hook & Ladder) for a TD
QB gets a passing TD, and passing yardage for the full length of the play.
First guy to catch the ball gets a reception, and receiving yards up to the point where his lateral is caught by another player.
Guy who catches the lateral and runs it in for a TD gets receiving yards from the point where he caught the lateral to the goal line, and a receiving TD, but doesn't get a reception.
If you have multiple laterals on a passing play, then each guy who gets a lateral gets receiving yards from the point he caught the lateral, to the point another player catches a lateral from him.
I think a lot of this discourse is silly just because if the recipient of the lateral was ANYONE other than Josh Allen, people would have no issue about the receiving TD being credited to that player. Josh Allen threw a pass which, at the end of the down, resulted in a touchdown. After the receiver made the reception, it was lateraled back to another player, who just happened to be Josh Allen, who completed the receiving play by ending the play in a touchdown.
I think the scorecard breaks people’s brains at first but when you isolate everything in the down into its smallest parts, the segments make sense.
Yeah this entire “debate” stems from people having a fundamental misunderstanding of what a passing TD or receiving TD really is
A receiving TD isnt when someone recieves the ball in the endzone, its when someone crosses the goalline with possession of the ball in a play in which a legal forward pass was completed
Then a passing TD is given to someone who completes a legal forward pass during a play which results in a TD.
As per rugby…. The lateral is a continuation of the play, in this case a reception resulting in a TD.
So glad you got the Brayden Point hatty into the conversation. Amazing stuff.
Has Josh Allen ever had a reception? More specifically, what I'm asking is; does Josh Allen have an infinite number of receiving yards per catch? 7 receiving yards, a receiving TD, and 0 catches is a wild stat line for seemingly infinite reasons.
That said; the NFL has it right here, I think. They lay it out in kind of a confusing way; but I agree with the premise that Josh Allen gets a TD pass, he threw the ball to a receiver that should get the reception, and the play resulted in a TD that just so happened to be Josh taking it in. Just because the stats that it produces are unique doesn't mean we should get rid of them. Without weird stats; this channel probably wouldn't exist. The play was unique in and of itself, and the stat-line reflects that; we should celebrate that as something cool and done right.
The only thing I might add is I might say we have the technology to start tracking lateral attempts and the results of them; because some guys like Randy definitely used the lateral to greater effect than a lot of others. I'm at least a little curious enough to see who stands where in the "greatest lateral-ers of all time"
He caught a 12 yard touchdown pass in 2020. Which means his career receiving stats are 1 reception, 19 yards, 19.0 yards per reception, a long (longest reception) of 12 yards, and 2 receiving touchdowns.
@ Well, it takes the infinity out of his stat-line but 2:1 TD receiving TDs to reception and an average yards per reception longer than his longest reception are both still quite exceptional.
It's a pass play. Therefore the TD scored on that play is a receiving touchdown, and it's credited to the player who had possession of the ball in the endzone.
OTOH, did Josh Allen catch a forward pass? No. Therefore, he is not credited with receiving a forward pass.
Y'all are making this WAY more complicated than it needs to be.
"But this player has 0 receptions and 1 receiving TD! That's confusing!"
Not really. That stat line clearly indicates that he scored a touchdown on a passing play, but was not the player who caught the forward pass. Therefore, the ball must have changed possession during the play. That's not confusing; it's exactly what happened.
I generally agree with this, and the first time I saw how the play was scored I thought “this makes sense and doesn’t really need any more explanation”.
But the idea that “because there was a pass at some point in the down means that everything that happens afterwards needs to be scored like a passing play” feels slightly SLIGHTLY arbitrary to me, even if I agree with it. And so I’d also be totally understanding if they ever decided to change the rule to score anything that occurs after a reception + lateral as rushing yards and a rushing touchdown.
@@LegandsandLabyrinths Agreed. Also in the alternative proposed at the end of the video, you'd have the play recorded as Josh Allen having 0 carries for 7 rushing yards and 1 rushing TD which also wouldn't make sense. You've just traded "0 reception, 1 rec TD" for "0 carry, 1 rush TD" which is equally illogical. Giving Allen a carry on the play also doesn't make sense because then you no longer have the correct total number of plays in the game.
“When the NHL learns what Rocket League is five years from now…”
Glorious shade.
I’m so curious if that was off the cuff or not though.
I have learnt a whole lot solely from this channel about mostly American sports, Football included. And have understood every single one of them, even Weird Rules... but this whole concept made me feel like I didn't have a grasp on the English language. I too, am like Seth, annoyed 😅
100% agree with Seth. It would make more sense to call it a fumble return touchdown that a receiving touchdown.
"what's gonna happen? Y2K?" lmfao I'm stealing that
I can get behind the logic of "catch plus reception for X yards, followed by Y yards rush for a rushing touchdown". Except then you pretty quickly run into a situation where you have to figure out what that means for yards after a catch. If a receiver catches a pass 10 yards downfield then runs an additional 60 yards for touchdown that should be a 70 yard TD pass and reception. But if we follow this logic out then maybe it should be thought of as a 10 yard reception followed by a 60 yard rushing touchdown.
Otherwise you have to setup the rule such that "all yards after a forward pass are receiving yards, unless the ball becomes live again through a fumble lateral or hand-off. At which point you open up the door for weird situations involving bobbled catches. I think the current setup results in some weird stats but it's the easiest version to record accurately.
I agree with Seth. It should be counted as a pass from Allen, reception by Cooper, and rushing TD by Allen. If the NFL needs equal number of passing and receiving TDs, this is not problem because It is scored as a rushing TD
I personally think this makes perfect sense, You can't have a passing play and rushing play on the same down. If the ball is thrown for a forward pass, all yards gained are receiving yards, all td's scored are receiving touchdowns.
this drove me crazy when it first happened and i pointlessly argued with a bunch of people online about it, which helped me come to this realization-
the issue is that we colloquially speak regularly of "TD catches" but thats not a thing. the stat is receiving TDs, and a receiving TD is not what what you think it is. it is something like being the player who brings the ball into the end zone on a passing play,, it has nothing to do with catching the ball.
now what is perhaps the real problem is that on a rushing play only one person gets credited a TD but on a passing play 2 people do, even if the pass is a 2 yard screen thats followed by 3 laterals and a 60 yard run.
or maybe the whole idea that there should be a seperate set of stats for rushing plays and passing plays is the problem.
or maybe TD pass needs to not be a thing. when a TD is scored, credit it to the person who carries the ball into the endzone. but we all love to talk about how many TD passes a Qb has.
10:28 Re: the basketball scenario: the actual rule is the last person to touch the ball in the offensive team. It just happened in a women’s college game this week.
The NFL has this correct if there was a forward pass then it is recorded as a passing play If they change it so that it only counts if you catch a forward pass then anything that isn't a ball caught in the endzone is a rushing touchdown.
In the MLB with the new extra innings runner rule, you can throw a perfect game and still get the loss. After 9 innings, the team without a baserunner gets a runner on second and then advances via passed ball or wild pitch twice.
Fuckit, Cooper and Allen should get half a receiving TD each. 😂
So, score it kinda like a sack can get scored? Where multiple defensive linemen share in the stat, from a gang-tackle? Sounds good to me.
@@dabeamer42 exactly. Jokes aside, I don't see why not: they worked together on it, credit them both
@@josephtamarez2105honestly… I weirdly agree with this joke. One of them caught it and the other got it in the end zone. If you’re not gunna call it a rushing TD, it’s a half receiving TD. Or an assisted receiving TD?
This is what happens when an entire country suffers from sports betting brain rot.
What about that infamous play from last year’s Chiefs-Bills game that was taken away when Kadarious Toney lined up offsides? If that had been upheld, would you have Kelce with the reception, but Toney with the yards and the receiving touchdown?
The logic of a Josh Allen rushing TD also hints at the idea that passing yards and TDs should only count the ball being in the air. Once the receiver takes possession, his YAC and TDs run into the endzone eould count as rushing.
I loved the "now annoyed" graphic, made me laugh.
I think an important point is that the passing and rushing plays within an down are defined in the rulebook for the purpose of rules enforcement. The differences between being in a passing play and rushing are crucial for the interpretation of rules such as pass interference, roughing the passer, defensive holding, targeting, and whatever the definition of a catch is.
4:21 Basketball has an analogous problem. NFL requires that every passing touchdown results in a receiving touchdown as well. NBA requires that every missed shot has a rebound. If the ball goes out of bounds, it is recorded as a "team rebound".
In hockey, it's possible for a player to score a goal without touching the puck. In extremely rare cases, teams have won faceoffs and then ended up putting the puck in their own net without the other team ever touching the puck. In such cases, the other team's center (who LOST the faceoff) gets credit for the goal. The best/worst of these happened on November 20, 1982 in Edmonton. Vancouver was leading 3-2, but had a faceoff in their zone with 11 or 12 seconds left in the third period. Vancouver wins the draw, with the puck going to defenseman Lars Lindgren along the side boards. Lindgren tries to move the puck along the end boards behind the Vancouver net, but somehow picks the corner on his own startled goaltender to tie the game at 3 with 9 seconds left. Mark Messier got credit for the goal. I know the game was broadcast on CBC on Hockey Night in Canada, but I have no idea if CBC still has any archive footage of the game or the goal.
Two days ago, this actually happened! Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres took a shot at an empty net and hit the post. Ryan McLeod rushed to the rebound but before he touched the puck, his stick was slashed. This is normally a penalty shot, but as the net was empty, McLeod was awarded a goal outright (which was switched back and forth between him and Thompson, but in the end was given to him for a hat trick).
I wholeheartedly agree that Allen should have been credited with 4 passing yards and a 7 yard rushing TD because Cooper threw a lateral, which is considered a rushing play.
5:22 so if the quarterback is 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage, throws, gets it batted back to him without the ball ever crossing the line, can he throw forward again?
You should deep dive to find if there was any instances of a run being scored in baseball against a pitcher that pitched a no hitter. I had the privilege of being the PA announcer in a college baseball game back in 1996, where going into the 9th inning, our pitcher, Ryan Vogelsong was no hitting our opponent. In that 9th inning, there was a "hit," by the opposing team. Being in the score keepers box, I then got to hear the very animated argument between the 2 teams scorekeepers as well as the league score keeper as to whether the play was a "hit" or an "error" on the third baseman. I'm not a baseball fan in the slightest, so I didn't really see the point of the argument. I just figured hey, we won, that's all that matters.....WELL.....apparently no hitters are more important that I had ever known. It literally took them about 20 minutes of back and forth trying to convince the official scorekeeper of their relative arguments. I think it was finally ruled an error, preserving the no hitter.
It's kinda simple: Throwing TD = you threw the ball and it ended up a TD. Receiving TD = you took a thrown ball in for a TD. Josh just so happened to be responsible for the bookends of this play and earned both. It's not a rushing TD because then any hook and ladder play is a 'rush' and not a passing play.
I'm also sure that much of the reason for it to be defined this way is not just gambling, but contract incentives, where players get bonus for hitting certain marks.
It's one of those things were it's nebulous and before fantasy football no one cared. TD passes / receptions are the most out there stats in general since unless the ball was caught in the end zone the amount of credit the pass should be given is drastically different.
Hand the ball to running back, rushing touchdown.
Throw the ball 1 inch forward to same running back, receiving touchdown.
It's arbitrary at the edges but a lot of things are.
How was that Randy Moss lateral to Moe Williams play scored? Was it the same as this?
Am I the only one who just thinks it’s obviously a receiving touchdown lol
This falls under the category of Hook and Ladder play which has clear defined scoring rules in the NFL. Jamo Williams had one a few weeks later as well. The QB gets the passing yds and the passing TD (if applicable), the first player gets the reception, the second player gets the receiving yds and the TD (if applicable.) In this case the QB was the QB and the second player, so he also gets the passing yds, the receiving yds and the both TDs it makes sense it's just weird because a third person wasn't involved.
The issue with considering it a rushing TD and rush yardage is that yards after catch are still considered passing yardage. The NFL would have to redefine YAC as rushing yardage for the record keeping to be cohesive. This is essentially YAC, just with a lateral in the mix. OR they would have to redefine any successful lateral as a running play and purely rush yardage. Go Bills!
Holy crap I just realized my Madden game maybe didn't glitch how I thought it did. Every once in a long blue moon I'll randomly see a receiver who has a receiving TD without any receptions and thinking that obviously can't be possible the game must just have glitched or something... however what's happening is the guy with the TD is receiving a lateral and scoring and then just not catching any other passes the rest of the game... amazing.
I am struggling to understand what you guys find confusing about this.
Haven't watched in a while, but it's nice to see nearly everyone in the same vid. Approaching MCU levels of crossover.
Josh wasn’t there to help block, he was in the vicinity because he threw a bad pass and was heading that way to stop the pick 6, I’m paraphrasing but his words.
Yeah he looked like he took a defensive position
all of this discussion over an objectively very cool and unique play and chris collingsworth immediately started talking about the chiefs
Here's a weird stat line from week 9, Jaylen Waddle had 2 receptions, -4 receiving yards, and 1 TD. The -4 yards are the result of Miami having to lateral the ball and Waddle was the last player to receive a lateral