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T.J. Hockenson Thought Overturned Touchdown Catch Against Eagles was “Ridiculous”
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Big sequence on Sunday afternoon in Minnesota. T.J. Hockenson catches what he thinks is a touchdown, only for the call to be overturned:
A touchdown there would have cut the Eagles’ lead to two points with about three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.
Vikings reporter Kevin Seifert at ESPN:
Hockenson said he had “control the whole time” and revealed that two members of referee Bill Vinovich’s crew told him they considered the play a catch and touchdown even after it was overturned.
“There was nothing to overturn it,” Hockenson said. “I mean, I was out there. I felt it, hands under the ball, snag it and I don’t understand. I don’t basically understand the catch rule at this point. … I don’t understand how New York can call in and just be like, ‘Yeah, that’s not a catch,’ when there was no evidence that it wasn’t. I mean I had it. I think it’s ridiculous.”
Yeah? Well the second angle there shows the ball touching the turf, then his hands separate after the impact before he’s able to bring them back together and secure it. You need to have control of the ball throughout the entire process of the catch, and it sure looks like he lost control momentarily. That’s basically the explanation that the chief zebra gave to the pool reporter after the game.
Regardless, it may have been smarter for the Vikings to kick the field goal right then and there, to save clock. Instead, they burned a minute trying to score a touchdown and settled for the field goal anyway, after the two-minute warning had already passed. The Eagles got the ball back and completed a bomb to A.J. Brown, which ended it. The big takeaway stat from this game was the Vikings’ 1-6 mark in the red zone.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com