The Tuck Rule is Eliminated

PFT - It’s much too late for the Raiders, but the Tuck Rule has been wiped out. The NFL owners voted Wednesday to wipe out the Tuck Rule at their meetings in Phoenix. With the rule eliminated, quarterbacks who pump fake and lose the ball while trying to bring it back into their torso will be deemed to have fumbled. Before the change, such a play would be ruled an incompletion. We led with the Raiders because the Tuck Rule will always be linked to their AFC Divisional Round game against the Patriots in 2002. It was a little-discussed rule until Tom Brady was ruled to have thrown an incomplete pass after dropping the ball … That game was a long time ago and there haven’t been a spate of high-profile instances of the rule being used in subsequent years, but the league obviously decided that the Tuck Rule had outlived its usefulness.

In all honesty I couldn’t be happier about this.  Not so much that they changed the rule; I don’t give a rat’s taint how they plan on making fumble calls in 2013.  I’m happy they voted to eliminate the Tuck Rule because it proves one crucial fact people have been trying to deny for years: There was, in fact, a Tuck Rule.  The Raiders bitching about Walt Coleman making the right call is in its 12th big year, and they’ve been leading the charge to get the rule off the books.  But do  the math: You can’t get rid of something that doesn’t exist.  It was called before the Snow Bowl, it was called during the Snow Bowl, it’s been called hundreds of times since.  Like Belichick said the other day, the rule helped the Pats in that game, but it cost them a game earlier in the year against the Jets.  He could’ve also mentioned how it went against the Pats against St. Louis a few weeks prior.  As a matter of fact, on the night in question it seemed like the Raiders and their announcers were the only ones in the building who didn’t know the rule.  Walt Coleman went under the hood, took one look at the replay and said “Oh, shit” because he knew they’d blown it the first time.  Skip to the 4:00 mark of the video where Pats fans cheered the replay because they knew they were getting the ball back.  And when Belichick sent the offense back out for the same reason.  Then listen to the ignoramuses calling the game on Oakland radio go “Oh, no! Oh, man! I don’t believe it.  We gotta get a rule book out.  I don’t believe this call is accurate!”  Still music to my ears after all these years.

And the best part of all is the way the Raiders hold the grudge after all this time, still convinced they got jobbed by what was a correct call.  This would be the same team that prides itself for winning championships on bogus calls like the Ken Stabler Holy Roller intentional fumble play.  Or the Ray Hamilton Roughing the Passer in 1976, still the worst officiated game of all time and a game that every Patriot from Steve Grogan to Russ Francis to John Hannah will tell you was fixed from the beginning.  Like I’ve been saying since the Tuck Rule happened, I wish the refs got it wrong.  It would be more fun for me knowing the Pats got payback for that ’76 bag job.  But it wasn’t.  They got it right.  Maybe now that they got the rule changed the Raiders will finally admit they were wrong and quit their fucking bellyaching.  A people should know when they are conquered.  @JerryThornton1