rulebook - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

NFL Rules Are Just SuggestionsTom Brady was watching Titans-Jaguars Thursday night and, like every other person with functional eyes, did not enjoy the experience. Only he overcame his revulsion and fear of being found out, tweeting about it and saying all the holding penalties were ruining his fun....

The NFL Clearly Has No Idea What Taunting IsToward the end of Washington’s victory over Cleveland on Sunday, Skins cornerback Josh Norman intercepted a pass and was penalized for taunting. Norman’s infraction? As referee Jeff Triplette memorably intoned, it was 15 yards for “shooting a bow and arrow.”...

This Is A Brilliant Way To Exploit The RulebookIt’s well-known that a kickoff out of bounds is a penalty, with the ball placed on the 40-yard line. It’s less well-known that the ball is out of bounds if it’s touched by any player who’s out of bounds, even if the ball itself is a couple of yards from the sideline. Ty Montgomery knew it....

The NFL's Catch Rule Got A Little More Complicated

The NFL published its updated 2016 rulebook this week, and here’s a list of some of the bigger changes. But c’mon, we all want to see what the ever-evolving, always-baffling catch rule looks like now, so we can pretend we have any idea what we’re talking about when there’s a catch controversy....

The NFL Now Has James Jones And Joey Porter Rules

As pointed out by Mike Pereira, the NFL makes a bunch of rule changes each year that aren’t technically rule changes—the rulebook wording can be adjusted under existing rules without having to send something to the Competition Committee. We’ve got some new ones for 2016, and they’re all direct respo...

I Just Learned About A New MLB Rule That's As Trivial As It Is Wonderful 

It makes me a total hypocrite to criticize the NFL’s byzantine rulebook and yet value baseball in large part for its own wholly opaque regulations. (Seriously. Try explaining a balk to an alien or to a small child, or, hell, to me. You can’t do it.) I don’t care. I love the fact that baseball has pl...

So, 3-On-3 Overtime Is Pretty Fun, Huh?

Along with coach’s challenges, the most noticeable new wrinkle in the NHL this season is the debut of 3-on-3 overtimes meant to decrease the number of games that go to a shootout. We saw its regular-season debut in last night’s 3-2 Lightning win over the Flyers, and it looked a lot like it did in it...

The Seahawks Know They Got Away With One

Now that we’ve had a night to sleep on the Seahawks’ controversial 13-10 win over the Lions, sealed by an uncalled “illegal bat,” let’s try to process what we saw—even as the NFL figures out what it can do to fix a very bad rule....