A quarterback's "intent" erased a Saints touchdown — is that a real rule?

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  Jamie1d ago

  I watched that play five times. The ball went BACKWARD. I don't care what was in Goff's heart, I care where the ball went. Since when does football read minds?

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  Alex1d ago

  okay so if i INTEND to make a million dollars but i end up broke, does the IRS let me write off the intent? asking for a friend who just watched the Saints game

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  Yuki4h ago

  my wife walked in during the broadcast explanation and watched for about 45 seconds and said 'this sport is insane' and walked back out. she's right. she's always right.

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  Yuki9h ago

  Someone just mentioned the tuck rule and I felt 22 years of Raiders grief come flooding back. Good morning.

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  Jordan16h ago

  If you disagree that this rule is broken, explain how you square it with the fact that no one — not the announcing crew, not Garafolo, not the Saints sideline, not apparently half the officials on the field — could immediately explain what was called or why. A rule that produces that level of universal confusion in its application is not functioning as a rule.

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  Elena _x4h ago

  The NFL needs to either write a rule that can be applied consistently and reviewed on replay, or they need to go back to the basic standard that everyone understood for a hundred years. What they cannot do is keep a rule on the books that produces a different answer every time three different referees look at it. That's not officiating, that's improv.

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  Elena S.1d ago

  Saints fan here. I've watched my team get hosed by officiating my entire adult life. This one felt different though — it didn't feel like bias, it felt like chaos. Nobody in the stadium knew what was happening. Nobody in the booth knew. The ref explaining it made it worse. That's a problem regardless of whether the rule technically exists.

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  Casey M.9h ago

  What everyone is missing is that Goff's arm was already moving forward when contact happened. Watch the replay in slow motion. This is the same logic as the tuck rule — which the NFL abolished because it was indefensible — and we are apparently relearning that lesson the hard way.

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  Maya14h ago

  Genuine question nobody's answered yet: has this exact call — intent ruling a backward-moving ball an incomplete pass — ever been made before in an NFL game? I can't find another example. If this is in the rulebook, when was the last time it actually changed an outcome?

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  Avery1d ago

  The person above me citing the rulebook needs to explain this then: if intent is the standard, who decides the intent? The officials just guessed. Goff could say anything after the fact. There is no way to verify intent on a bang-bang play in real time. That's the actual problem with this rule, not whether it exists.

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  Riley22h ago

  I don't have a dog in this fight — Bears fan, so both these teams losing is kind of ideal — but I pulled up the actual rulebook language after watching the clip and the 'intent' clause is genuinely there. That said, the rule is written in a way that basically makes it unreviewable, which feels like a massive design flaw. You can't replay intent.

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  Zara7h ago

  okay the tuck rule comparison is actually really smart and I hate that I didn't think of it first. The NFL killed that rule specifically because 'intent' is not a football concept, it's a courtroom concept. And here we are.

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  Priya12h ago

  I'm a Lions fan and even I felt a little weird watching that. Like, we got the benefit of the doubt on something that visually looked like we fumbled. I'll take the W, obviously, but I didn't feel great about it.

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  Marco1d ago

  Mike Garafolo not understanding it should tell you something. This man covers the league full time. If a seasoned NFL insider is sitting there going 'I don't get it,' the rule is either obscure to the point of being useless or it was applied wrong.

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  Maya T.18h ago

  Counterpoint to everyone saying 'ball went backward = fumble': what stops a QB from just flinging it sideways every time he's about to be sacked and hoping someone recovers it? The intent rule exists partly to prevent that. Doesn't mean the call Sunday was right, but the rule isn't pointless.

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  Ravi1d ago

  Actually the rule has been in the book for a while. Rule 8, Section 1, Article 1 — a forward pass is determined by the passer's intent, not the direction the ball travels. It's poorly understood but it's not invented. The crew wasn't wrong.

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  Avery10h ago

  The Lions fan who 'didn't feel great about it' is being incredibly honest and I respect it, but let's be real: every fanbase in that situation takes the call and moves on. The Saints would too.

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  Elena 9221h ago

  My grandfather played semi-pro in the 50s and he always said a fumble is a fumble. Ball on the ground, anyone can have it. Simple. Clean. No philosophy degree required. The NFL has been layering complexity onto this sport for 30 years and every layer makes it worse.

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  Reese _x16h ago

  This happened to me in a fantasy playoff game last year. Different play, same chaos. A ruling overturned what I thought was a clear fumble and cost me $200. I'm not saying that matters in the grand scheme of things but I am saying I googled that rule at 1am in a cold fury and came out of it equally confused, which tells you everything.

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  Maya _x1d ago

  I've been officiating youth and high school football for 22 years. Intent-based rulings exist at every level. It's genuinely difficult and refs get it wrong sometimes, but acting like this rule appeared out of thin air last Sunday is just people who don't read rulebooks being loud.

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  Ravi13h ago

  To the person asking when this was called before — it almost never comes up because most of the time when a QB loses the ball going backward it's obviously a fumble or obviously a grounded pass. The Goff play was genuinely weird because the mechanics looked like a throwing motion that went sideways. That's what made it a judgment call instead of a clear call.

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  Noah18h ago

  the call being 'technically correct' and 'a good rule' are two completely different conversations and this thread keeps mixing them up

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  Zara1d ago

  To the ref with 22 years experience — with respect, the high school rule and the NFL rule are not identical. And 'it's genuinely difficult' is doing a lot of work in your argument. Difficult is not the same as correct.

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  Drew K.6h ago

  The tuck rule was different in one important way though — it covered cases where the QB had clearly stopped his throwing motion. The argument here is that Goff's motion was still ongoing. I'm not saying the call was right, just that the analogy isn't perfect.

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  Diego23h ago

  nope. fumble. touchdown. next play. this is why nobody trusts the nfl anymore

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