- Seth, I think one thing that we've learned
in doing this series is that the NFL rulebook
is a complete disaster.
- Yes. Definitely.
- You would agree?
Yeah it's just-- - Yeah
- It's all over the place, it's too long,
it's really byzantine.
But there's one rule that I have a special place for
in my heart, that you and I have actually
talked about before.
- Okay.
- And it is regarding palpably unfair acts.
Do you remember when we talked about that?
- Oh, the guy that was blocking field goals
by standing right in front of the uprights?
- Yes, yes.
- [Seth] I remember that. It was the sexy word
in the NFL rulebook.
- [Ryan] Palpably unfair, yes.
- [Seth] It's so unfair, you could take a bite out of it.
- [Ryan] Yeah, you could taste it.
You just go up and have a little nibble.
- [Seth] Yeah.
- [Ryan] Dip your finger-- - [Seth] It's a really
gorgeous, sort of inspiring word to throw in there.
- So it turns out the phrase palpably unfair act--
- Yeah.
- comes up a whole lot in the rulebook,
and it all relates to the Palpably Unfair Act rule,
- Okay. - which is tucked in
at the end of the rulebook.
And it's really great, I love it.
It's Rule 12, Section 3, Article 4,
and it basically says, "A player or substitute
"shall not interfere with play by any act
"which is palpably unfair."
- Oh, so they're not going to go into any detail there.
- No they don't go into any detail.
But what I have found is that it's basically
like an undo button for anything that happens
during a game that's not specifically described
in the rulebook, right?
So, something happens during a game
that is legitimately crappy for one team or the other
- Mm-hmm. - that's not specifically
detailed in the rulebook.
The officials can step forward and say,
"Hey look, this is not fair",
and then they can levy whatever penalty they want
onto this particular situation that they feel
rectifies it.
You can move the ball, you can give points,
you can reward a touchdown if you think that
a touchdown would have happened if not for whatever
event is happening, right? - Yeah.
That's sensible.
- [Ryan] Yeah, makes sense. - [Seth] So the NFL rulebook
sucks, but it's self-aware. It's like,
"We know we didn't think of some things,
- [Ryan] Right. - [Seth] "so here's the
(buzzer sound)
"God button that's like,
"No, sorry, I know that this isn't listed but
"no you cannot do that."
- Yes, exactly. - And I get to determine
what your punishment is.
- Basically, yes.
Yeah. - I'm into that.
- It's kinda cool.
- So does this, I mean, we know that the
field goal blocking guy--
- Right.
- triggered this, but does this come up,
like, a lot?
- I wouldn't say it comes up a lot,
but it has come up in the past
in a few key instances-- - Okay.
- that I think are pretty interesting.
One is the famous Snow Plow Game.
Have you heard of it? - No.
- I hadn't until recently. - No.
- It's the Dolphins against the Patriots in 1982.
- Okay.
- [Ryan] The Dolphins are playing in Foxborough
during a snowstorm,
okay? - [Seth] Okay.
- [Ryan] Which, yeah--
- [Seth] Already palpably unfair.
You can feel-- - [Ryan] Right.
- [Seth] the temperature of-- - [Ryan] They don't deal--
- [Seth] the unfairness. - [Ryan] with that. They--
don't have that in Florida. - [Seth] Yeah.
- [Ryan] They don't know what to do with it.
The field condition is very bad.
It gets worse throughout the game.
In fact, at the end of the game,
there is only one score and that's the Patriots
scoring a field goal.
The Final score is 3-0.
- Mm-hmm.
- But, right before that field goal happens,
the Patriots coach at the time
has the grounds crew clear out a space with a snowplow.
- [Seth] Where the ball is gonna go?
- [Ryan] Where the placekicker is gonna set up
to kick the ball.
Now, you're, like, tangibly changing
the condition of the field in the middle of the game.
- Yeah.
- [Ryan] So, rightfully so, Don Shula,
the coach of the Dolphins at the time,
after the fact was like, "That's unfair!"
Don Shula, the coach of the Dolphins,
goes to Pete Rozelle, who's the Commissioner at the time,
and is like, "This is a primary case for this rule.
"Like, this is palpably, demonstrably unfair,
"that they had this extra advantage that directly
"helped their kicker."
- Right.
- And Pete Rozelle said, "Yes, you are right.
"According to the rulebook, this is unfair.
"But also--" - [Seth] Real quick,
- [Ryan] Yeah, sure. - [Seth] according to the
rulebook that says "If it's unfair, then it's unfair",
y'know? - [Ryan] Right. Yes.
- There's nothing there that says palpably unfair acts
such as plowing the snow or whatever.
- Right. If it's palpably unfair, it's--
- He's not going off much.
- Right, exactly. - I get it, but he's not
basing that on anything. It's not like he had to
read the rulebook. - Right.
So Pete Rozelle goes, "Yeah it was unfair",
but he also had a thing for, like,
not changing the results of games
after the fact-- - Which is reasonable.
- Which seems reasonable. - Yeah.
- So he was like, "Well, we're not gonna play it over.
"Like, the result stands. It's 3-0."
- Sorry. - Go back to Florida.
And there's actually a second rule
that is very close to this rule,
and it's a little bit later in the rulebook
in a completely different section, which is strange,
that kind of kicks it all up a notch--
- Okay - and is directly related to
a much more recent event, - Okay.
- And that is called The Extraordinarily Unfair
Act Rule. - [Seth] Oh, we love adverbs!
- [Ryan] (laughs) Yeah man,
we're going way over the top.
This is like the platinum level
of unfair-- - The Cosmically Unfair Act.
That's amazing. - Yeah.
- So, there has been an extraordinarily unfair act recently?
- So someone has tried to enact this rule--
- Ah. Okay. - As a matter of fact,
an entire fanbase has tried to
enact this rule. - Oh, is this Saints fans?
- It is, yes.
- Of course. - So the Extraordinarily
Unfair Act Rule is a little bit later.
It's Rule 15, Section 2, and this section basically
lets the Commissioner play God. Basically says,
if there's any situation where something is clearly
over=the-top unfair that directly
affected the outcome of a game,
the Commissioner has the - Yeah.
- ability to step in and do whatever he wants.
He can have a game replayed, he can reverse the results,
he can have it start in the middle of a game and replay,
whatever. - Yeah.
- He can do whatever he wants.
So this was the rule that the Saints organization
tried to lobby Roger Goodell to enact
to change the result of the
2019 NFC Championship. - 'Cause what even happened
that they were so mad about?
I don't remember. - So there was some
helmet-to-helmet pass interference
that the League later said, yes,
that should have been called pass interference
but was not-- - Oh. Okay,
- which would have likely-- - so it's just a blown call.
- It's a blown call, yes.
- That's not extraordinarily unfair.
There's a couple of those every game.
- Right, exactly.
So,
in a little bit of, like, "Oh maybe the NFL rulebook
has something here", - Yeah.
- the very next part of that rule says this.
"The authority and measures provided for
"in this entire section 2 do not constitute
"a protest machinery for NFL clubs to avail
"themselves of in the event a dispute arises
"over the result of a game."
- Okay.
- Boom! - Yeah.
- Smackdown. - Saints fans...
- Take that!
- This actually makes me think of something
that I have thought of before, which is
a little weird and I probably shouldn't
say on camera, but I've always thought
two things. - Where is this gonna go?
- Two things in sports-- - Uh huh.
- that I think someone will try someday.
One-- - [Ryan] Yeah.
- [Seth] is to smell terrible.
To be filthy and disgusting,
and be, like, a lineman
trying to grapple with someone, and I think
that would give you an awesome unfair advantage.
- So you're saying, have your hygiene be
so bad-- - So disgusting that
people are like,
"Just sack the quarterback, - That people don't even --
- "I don't even care." - want to contact you in
a full contact sport. - Yes, yes.
So that's the palpably unfair version.
The extraordinarily unfair version is to be
super sick and really contagious,
and just be out there-- - [Ryan] So you have smallpox?
- [Seth] You-- - [Ryan] (laughs)
You're out there on the field--
- [Seth] You run out there, you have cholera,
and you're just like (Seth coughs).
- If you're Commissioner-- - Yes.
- You're Commissioner Rosenthal. I have an issue.
I found out that the New England Patriots
smeared themselves with feces before
they went out on the field. - They all have diphtheria,
(Ryan laughs) - and they're, like,
pissing themselves during the game,
and there's no rule against that.
- Sure, yeah. - They did not
do any, like, unsportsmanlike conduct.
They didn't hurt anybody, they didn't encroach, whatever.
But c'mon, that's--
- I don't know. Well, let's say--
I want to be very clear, I don't know for a fact
that there is not a rule in the rulebook
that says you can't - [Seth] (laughing)It's like--
- cover yourself in your own human waste.
- You can't trip people, you can't fight people,
you can't be really stinky, and--
- No poopy. - (laughing) No poopy.
- No poopy. You have to be healthy.
- It's actually, it's like, 3.2.6 is just "No poopy."
They don't explain it any further.
- No poopy.
(both laugh)
- I'm sorry that I said poopy on your
esteemed television show. - It's okay, it was honestly
bound to happen at some point,
and I'm really glad that it happened with you,
you know what I mean?
- Yeah. - Thanks for that.
- We shared a moment. - I appreciate it. Mm-hmm.
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