In fact it is the opposite. He has to catch the ball and establish both feet INBOUNDS for it to be a legal catch, just as if he was recieving a pass. The fact that his second foot landed out of bounds meant that the kick was out of bounds as well.

It was the right call. Clearly Hester thought he f**ked up. He got lucky.

Yes, that's what this whole thread is about.

I thought that is what I saw also.


But if Hester would have had a knee down when caught the KO, would it have been consdered out of bounds at that point. You know the 1 knee equals 2 feet......

From now on, if a return man catches the ball outside of the hashmarks, he should quickly hop on one foot towards the sidelines and put the second foot down only after he crosses the sideline.

Herm should be having one-footed-catching and hopping drills in practice for the return men.

I know that this sounds ridiculous, but does that mean a return man could bat the kickoff to someone standing out of bounds and it would be a penalty on the kicking team?

I guess I should try to find the rulebook to see how things are worded, it may negate my scenario above, but if not, KC Fish is right, there are a number of things you could do to take advantage of the situation.

that would probably be considered a football move though and wouldn't count.

If Hester had established himself out of bounds before the catch, wouldn't he be an in-eligable player first to touch the ball with a penalty going against him?



Stupid rule.

Exactly, what's the point of this rule? Who's to say the ball doesn't land in the field of play near the out of bounds line and bounce away from the line, towards the field?

Actually, with the way he was running towards the sideline to catch the ball, who's to say that the ball wouldn't have hit near, at or beyond the goal line just inside the pylon?

Catch it while hopping on one foot, then lateral it to a guy standing out of bounds! Though I guess the lateral might be a "football move" :banghead:

That would be illegal batting of the ball out of bounds and be a penalty. Selvin Young (Broncos) was called for that last week on a dropped lateral he batted OoB. A heads up play on his part, but still a penalty.

Someone should have stomped on his left foot then...... :banghead:

One foot touching multiple times would count as multiple steps in bounds.

I still don't like the incomplete call on Webb, I think if a player catches the ball, takes two steps and his knees touch the ground then has it knocked out it should still be a catch. With each knee counting as 2 feet, that is a lot of touches to the ground.

No. Because he is OoB when he touches the ball. If he goes out of bounds THEN re-establishes himself inbounds and touches the ball first it is illegal touching of the ball.

I wasn't really all that pissed off that it was called incomplete. But it sure verified that my opinion of the Wilson 'fumble' from last week was complete hogwash. It's nearly the same situation. Once it was a fumble, the other time it wasn't.