I would love to focus on the Brewers all day, but I can't find any reference to this so I have to mention it.
Last night in the Eagles-Bears game, on fourth down in the 4th quarter with 3:40 to go, Correll Buckhalter scored, but was incorrectly ruled down by the officials. You could see very clearly from the overhead shot that the ball crossed the plane of the goal line. The Bears should be 1-3, and I should have 6 more points in fantasy football.
I'm not so sure. In the shot from the "goal line" camera it looked like the ball was about an inch short, if that, but short nonetheless. That overhead shot had to have been from the "madden cam" (as I call it) that hangs from the cables and is maneuvered around by (probably) a computer-gamer turned cameraman with a pretty cool job.
ReplyDeleteI saw exactly what you saw, in the overhead shot, the ball appeared to cross the line, but in the side view it was also pretty clear that it didn't. I'm far more inclined to rely upon the accuracy of the sideline shot than the overhead shot.
I also wish the Bears were 1-3, and sorry about your fantasy team, but I think they got the call right and I think had Philly challenged (it wasn't inside 2 minutes, was it?) they would have lost.
I found some additional support:
ReplyDeletehttp://footballoutsiders.com/audibles/audibles-line-week-4-2008
"Vince Verhei: From the blimp cam, you could clearly see the ball crossing the plane on fourth down.
Mike Tanier: Didn't see that angle. My Wishful Thinking Cam showed it going in all four times.
Doug Farrar: Wow. Evidently, none of Andy's guys in the booth have that angle up? Amazing that the NFL can put out any number of camera angles for the public, but replay technology always seems to lag behind.
(Fines self $15,000 for criticizing officiating in general.)
Vince Verhei: And then they show blimp cam shot over and over, never noticing that hey, almost the entire ball is across the plane.
This would not stand up in a court of law, but it's the best I can do: This is a touchdown."
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/9306/img2238ch6.jpg
However, Matt, reading the comments field on the post, it appears that you are correct, and that the Blimp-cam would have caused enough parralax to make the ball look as if it was in the end zone even if it was just short.
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