Does Harmon get flagged for diving on "the catch"?

[Carlos Cowart]

In the old days - like 6 years ago - you could dive on a bobbling ball to prevent a completion, but I suspect crushing a guy laying on his back just before a probable incompletion draws a flag.
 
Should Harmon have jumped over that play, dove into it, crushing Kearse, or attempted to dive over it and tried to swat the ball away without touching Kearse?
 
 
http://imgur.com/gallery/cj8Qzjc
 

 

[Old Fart Tree]

It happened so fast, I don't think he had any option but to do exactly what he did. Which proved ineffective.

 

[nattysez]

I think so.  He would've had to dive in order to prevent the catch -- I don't think any kind of miraculous reach-down-and-slap-the-ball or kick-the-ball move seems possible.  And if he's diving, I don't see how it isn't a pretty violent-looking hit on a guy laying on his back.  Also, I expect his knee would've hit Kearse in the helmet when he dove, making it look even worse.  I think he'd have gotten nailed for hitting a defenseless receiver.  

 

[riboflav]

15 yards given up on a PF is better that allowing the catch.

 

[bigsid05]

15 yards given up on a PF is better that allowing the catch.

 
True in hindsight but, but 99 times out of 100, that's an incomplete pass followed by a dumb penalty with less than 1 minute to go in the Super Bowl.

 

[riboflav]

 
True in hindsight but, but 99 times out of 100, that's an incomplete pass followed by a dumb penalty with less than 1 minute to go in the Super Bowl.

 
I'd like for Harmon not to take the chance that Kearse would catch it given the situation - SB, 5-yard line vs. 23-yard line, not much time left... But, I agree that's an instinctive play Harmon made similar to Butler reaching out and tripping the receiver earlier which was exactly the right thing to do. Got beat bad, trip the receiver and hope the ref doesn't notice. If he does, no big deal as a catch would have been much worse.
 
EDIT: Changed my mind. They were not instinctive plays. Both have been coached to do exactly what they did. Butler was probably trained to trip a receiver running free in the open field. Perhaps, Harmon deserves some blame for not adjusting to the situation as mentioned above. But, his "instinct" if you can call it that was to trust his training, which was "do not nail a receiver on his back."

 

[Byrdbrain]

You really can't expect him to do anything else in the tenth of a second he had to make a decision. He saw the ball batted and knew it was incomplete so he had to make sure he didn't commit a stupid penalty.
Unfortunately what he knew was wrong.

 

[Carlos Cowart]

And that's where the newer, kinder rules kind of suck. Nobody wants to see anyone get hurt but Harmon had to jump over a ball in the air because hitting a guy on the ground would look terrible. If Kearse is standing up or falling down, game on.

 

[Carlos Cowart]

The correct answer is go for the ball and do everything you can to avoid contact. I think there's a decent chance that gets picked off and a much better chance it gets knocked away incomplete.

 

[BigJimEd]

Yeah, I think he had a chance to attempt to break it up without crushing Kearse. Tough play. I'm not really faulting for it but hopefully next time he goes for the ball until he sees it hit the ground.

 

[Harry Hooper]

The correct answer is go for the ball and do everything you can to avoid contact. I think there's a decent chance that gets picked off and a much better chance it gets knocked away incomplete.

 
Yeah, if he makes a legit try for the ball and kicks or steps on Kearse in the process, I don't think he's getting flagged.

 

[Deathofthebambino]

So long as he's going for the ball, AND he isn't leading with his helmet into the receiver, there would have been no flag there no matter how it turned out.

 

[lexrageorge]

Harmon was going pretty full speed there, and I do think we may be underestimating the degree of difficulty in actually breaking up that pass in that situation.  If he made a mistake, it was assuming the pass was incomplete.  If the pass is obviously falling to the ground, I can see why Harmon did not want to risk a penalty or potentially knocking the ball into Kearse's hands. And from his angle, the pass may very well looked as if it hit the ground (can't really tell).

 

[lexrageorge]

Eugene Wilson probably would have decapitated Kearse on that play.

As would Brandon Merriweather, although BMW would have waited until after Kearse was out of bounds.  

 

[DJnVa]

This is the pic I posted in the other thread:
 

 
 
Look where he is in relation to the ball---he has a split second and has to be thinking that's incomplete. And this entire board though the NFL and refs had it in for NE--how comfortable would you really have been if he dove from there and touched the WRs head, that it wouldn't have been called?
 
A few other things about this play:
 
1--If he was flagged, Seattle had 1st and 10 from the 23, with more than a minute left. I would have been nervous as hell.
 
2--The fact that it took a month to get a thread devoted to this shows me that most of SoSH thinks he probably did the right thing.
 
3--It's much more fun debating this since we know how it turned out

 

[Hagios]

 
2--The fact that it took a month to get a thread devoted to this shows me that most of SoSH thinks he probably did the right thing.

 
This topic was discussed a couple times in the Superbowl game thread. Once when the play happened (see page 97, always worth a reread to see hearts breaking and then being miraculously healed) and then a couple other times after that with the benefit of hindsight.
 
edit: rereading page 97 it was interesting to see that most posters (A) wanted to let the Seahawks score, and (B) wanted the Pats to take a timeout. That was how I felt too.

 

[lexrageorge]

What the still doesn't show is that Harmon had a full head of steam at that point.  Chances of a catch happening at that point are around 0.1%; chances of a needless penalty are much higher.  
 
This was a settled argument until it was raised again in one of the offseason/Revis/McCourty threads.  

 

[BigJimEd]

1. Instead they had first goal which made me much more nervous.

2. This thread was started two days after the game.

3. Absolutely. It would be a much different discussion otherwise.

 

[Stitch01]

Yeah, if you watch the second coaches film angle there's no chance of knocking the ball away when it pops up off of Kearse, Harmon is running full speed and is past Kearse when the ball bounces up.  He could have tried to play the ball before as it falls to the turf, but would have involved flattening Kearse on what looked like a routine incomplete pass.  Harmon does come back to try to make a play on Kearse, heading off the other argument from the other thread comparing his lack of heads up play to Butler's.
 
This just came up again because someone mentioned the play in the context of not signing McCourty.  The idea of Harmon's performance on that play affecting signing McCourty seems certifiably insane to me, but what do I know.

 

[MalzoneExpress]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2if5mg60D8