McDermott delivered an impassioned rant<\/a> against the call on that overtime pass to Cooks.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to \u2014 and I\u2019ve had a chance to look at it \u2014 it\u2019s hard for me to understand why it was ruled the way it was ruled,\u201d McDermott said after the game. \u201cIf it is ruled that way, then why wasn\u2019t it slowed down, just to make sure that we have this right. That would have made a lot of sense to me. To make sure that we have this thing right, because that\u2019s a pivotal play in the game. We have the ball at the (20-yard line) and maybe kicking a game-winning field goal right there.<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2026 But I\u2019m saying it because I\u2019m standing up for Buffalo, dammit. I\u2019m standing up for us. What went on \u2014 that is not how it should go down, in my estimation. These guys spent three hours out there, playing football, pouring their guts out. To not even say, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s just slow this thing down.\u2019 That\u2019s why I\u2019m bothered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruff couldn\u2019t help but think of his own experience nearly 27 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe play that Sean was talking about is eerily like our \u2018No Goal\u2019 in \u201999,\u201d Ruff said after Sabres practice on Sunday. \u201cYou know, what\u2019s the rule? We\u2019ve had that debate. I totally get it. If I looked at the football game against the Jags and it took two or three minutes to decide whether the clock expired, why wouldn\u2019t it take two or three minutes to decide whether this guy was down on the ground with the ball and had been touched and is that a catch? Why was that definitive so fast? I don\u2019t know enough about it to even be standing here commenting, but like most Buffalo fans, it just felt like you had been stabbed in the gut with a knife. That\u2019s what it felt like to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Saturday\u2019s game, referee Carl Cheffers spoke with a pool reporter and explained, \u201cThe receiver has to complete the process of a catch. He was going to the ground as part of the process of the catch, and he lost possession of the ball when he hit the ground. The defender gained possession of it at that point. The defender is the one that completed the process of the catch, so the defender was awarded the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheffers also said the ruling was upheld by a review in New York. That explanation didn\u2019t sit well with McDermott.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat play is not even close,\u201d McDermott said. \u201cThat\u2019s a catch all the way. I sat in my locker and I looked at it probably 20 times, and nobody can convince me that that ball is not caught and in possession of Buffalo. I just have no idea how the NFL handled it, in particular, the way that they did. I think the players and the fans deserve an explanation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruff knows what McDermott was feeling. The Bills played an imperfect game with four other turnovers in addition to the controversial interception. Like the Sabres in 1999, there were other factors that led to their season ending. But in the immediate aftermath, it\u2019s hard to reconcile with one of those factors being something outside of your control.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nothing more than just being emotional about the game and how it ended,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cYou\u2019re not blaming. You want a better explanation. You feel like maybe there was a better call to make like tie goes to the offensive guy. Tie goes to the runner in baseball. I thought tie went to the offensive guy in football. I might be a biased Bills fan, though. That\u2019s probably the way everybody will take it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff knows better than most what Sean McDermott and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1807,1809,349,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-416361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-buffalo-bills","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}