Towards the end of the first half of Packers-Seahawks Sunday night, James Jones was ruled to have caught a touchdown. However, review showed that even though his feet were down inbounds in the end zone, his butt was firmly out of bounds at the moment he caught the ball:
Of course, the NFL rules state that you have to have both feet inbounds to make a catch, which Jones did. But if you have another part of your body out of bounds, well, you're out of bounds. Jones was clearly out of bounds, thanks to his butt.
So, eventually, NFL ref Gene Steratore had to get on the mic and tell the crowd and TV audience why this wasn't a touchdown. He had to tell everybody about James Jones' butt:
But he took the easy road out:
Yes, Steratore called Jones' butt "a part of the receiver's body." BUT WHICH PART?!?!?!?!?!?!
NFL refs often go into as much detail as possible when explaining their calls, and often do, mentioning whichever elbow or forearm or shin they need to mention to most clearly tell everybody why they interpreted the rule the way they did. And yet, we got "a part of the receiver's body."
Some might say that Steratore was merely being shy. But obviously this goes deeper. This is the result of a vicious anti-butt conspiracy by the National Football League.
Roger Goodell, your butt-shame is unnecessary. We, the American people, know about butts. In describing this play, Cris Collinsworth REPEATEDLY said the word "butt," so it's not like our precious ears were shielded from the danger of the word "butt" by the ref's butt abstinence. (Al Michaels opted for the more medically safe "buttock," but that word has butt in it, so, he was basically saying butt.)
College football is proud of its butts. Even NFL fans love their butts -- the buttfumble, which by the way is the Wikipedia-official name of that play, is pretty much the most famous play in NFL history. Why can't the NFL accept its own butts for what they are?
We will not rest until NFL referees are free to say BUTT when their duties require them to. This is America, a land based on the ideal of free spee--
heh, I said "duties"
lol