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How was Brock Osweiler's weird backward incompletion not called a fumble?

Frank Schwab
NFL writer

Fox officiating expert Mike Pereira is rarely at a loss for words, but a truly odd play by Brock Osweiler had him perplexed.

The Miami Dolphins quarterback got hit by Houston Texans linebacker Josh Keyes late in the first half on Thursday, the ball went backward, the Texans scooped it and scored. We know a backward pass is a fumble.

Not so fast.

“This is a tough one,” Pereira said as he got his first look at the replay.

Osweiler’s arm was moving forward and the ball ended up going backward. The call ended up being overturned, but it was a confusing rule. And it came during a first half in which the officiating crew made some errors. They didn’t need the extra stress.

Brock Osweiler was hit, causing the ball to go backward

The play looked weird when it happened, and even weirder on replay.

Osweiler was going to throw the ball as Keyes hit him. The force of the hit caused the ball to go backward. As Pereira explained, that was important. There’s an NFL rule that states if defensive contact causes the ball to go backward, then it’s treated as a forward pass. It’s not a rule we see used very often.

However, there was another layer to the call, and it included two words that are infamous in NFL history: tuck rule.

The tuck rule was a part of the ruling

The tuck rule has changed since Tom Brady officially didn’t fumble against the Raiders in the 2001 season’s playoffs, so if the ball is going down as a quarterback brings it back to his body, it’s considered a fumble. The officials had to rule first if the defensive contact forced the ball to go backward, and then if Osweiler was in the latter stages of tucking the ball. It looked like Osweiler was trying to bring the ball back to his body when he was hit.

The tuck rule was changed to say if the ball comes loose, when the arm is going forward, then it’s considered an incomplete pass. If the arm is going down it’s considered a fumble. That’s not the easiest thing to determine, as we found out, especially since Osweiler’s hand turned as he got hit hard.

Pereira said he didn’t think he saw anything that could lead the officials to reversing the call, right before they reversed the call.

“If they felt he wasn’t bringing the ball down, which is what they ended up concluding, then it does become an incomplete pass when the ball comes loose,” Pereira said.

“That is about as convoluted a rule, a ruling, as you can get,” Fox play-by-play man Joe Buck said.

Miami Dolphins quarterback Brock Osweiler (8) is hit by Houston Texans defender Josh Keyes (49), a play that led to a strange call. (AP)
Miami Dolphins quarterback Brock Osweiler (8) is hit by Houston Texans defender Josh Keyes (49), a play that led to a strange call. (AP)

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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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