Kevin Burkhardt and Mike Pereira discuss intentional grounding non-call: ‘Cowboys get lucky there, right, Mike?’

The first half of the Dallas Cowboys’ home game against the Baltimore Ravens wasn’t exactly close or thrilling overall, with the Ravens putting up a 21-6 halftime lead. However, it did feature quite an interesting moment for both officiating and broadcasting.

That came in the second quarter after Dallas’ Dak Prescott almost got sacked in the end zone and threw the ball away. Guard Tyler Smith (who was ineligible) caught it, making for a likely illegal touching call. However, Fox play-by-play voice Kevin Burkhardt brought up the possibility of an intentional grounding call (which would have led to a safety) rather than illegal touching (which would be declined to produce a fourth-down punt). And NFL on Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira gave him some support for that before the officials’ decision:

Kevin Burkhardt brought up intentional grounding. Mike Pereira said “If there’s no eligible receivers in that area, you disregard that touch and you could convert that into intentional grounding.” Burkhardt then said “I don’t think there was anyone in that area but Tyler Smith.” https://t.co/6uaCf2WyNp

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 22, 2024

After referee Ron Torbert’s announcement that the call was illegal touching, Burkhardt went back to this in stronger terms still, and Pereira backed him up:

After the call, Burkhardt said “Wow, so, the Cowboys get lucky there, right, Mike? They could easily have called that intentional grounding.” Pereira then said “Yeah, I think that is right. You don’t have an ineligible player take you off that.” pic.twitter.com/KyLO1KhwPW

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 22, 2024

There are several interesting things there. First, there’s always popular discussion about NFL conspiracies in favor of the Cowboys, even when there isn’t much proof for that; those got another reference point here. There’s also often discussion of Fox as a pro-Cowboys broadcaster considering how often they show Dallas to most of the country in their biggest “America’s Game of the Week” late afternoon window, but the conversation here from Burkhardt and Pereira certainly goes against that.

And, maybe most fascinatingly, there was the utter lack of comment on this particular aspect of the situation from Fox’s new No. 1 analyst and $375 million man, Tom Brady. Brady didn’t offer much through this whole thing, other than “It’s almost a fumble.” And that got some notice:

Tom Brady just sat mouth agape and added zero

— Liam Canadian (@LiamCanadian21) September 22, 2024

The discussion of whether this should have been intentional grounding is rather technical, of course. And a big reason networks employ rules experts like Pereira is to specifically break down moments like this. And Brady’s first responsibility isn’t rules details.

But it was interesting that Brady didn’t really seem to have much to offer here on any front. It would have been notable to hear from him even on something like what’s going through a quarterback’s mind when under pressure in the end zone, or how he tried to avoid intentional grounding as a player. (It’s possible he would have gotten to that in a longer delay waiting for the call, but there still seemed to be some opportunity to weigh in here.) And while this sequence alone probably isn’t going to even be a large feature of the conversation around Brady and this game overall, much less the overall conversation on Fox’s decision to put him in on the top team in place of Greg Olsen (who earned praise for his own work Sunday on the No. 2 team), it is another data point for Brady critics.

[Awful Announcing on X/Twitter]