Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill is the latest NFL star to wade into the fair catch controversy surrounding the Gophers’ 12-10 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes last Saturday.
“Once the punt returner says ‘PETER’ the ball is dead. All return specialist know this,” Hill tweet Friday. Hill was quote tweeting a clip of Iowa returner Cooper DeJean’s punt return that had a caption saying, “Nothing about this says fair catch.”
“Peter” or “poison” are terms used to describe when punt returners signal their teammates to get out of the way of the ball.
Once the punt returner says “PETER” the ball is dead . All return specialist know this 🫣 https://t.co/8sZCavRydP
— Ty Hill (@cheetah) October 27, 2023
In his one season at Oklahoma State, Hill racked up over 1,000 kick and punt return yards with three return touchdowns. At West Alabama in 2015, Hill totaled over 700 return yards before being taken by the Chiefs in the 106 draft.
Hill isn’t the only NFL player to offer an opinion on the matter this week. Aaron Rodgers told Pat McAfee, “That was the most ridiculous call that I saw all last week.”
“Nothing about this says fair catch,” continued Rodgers. “Absolutely nothing about this. The ball is on the ground, he’s pointing at it for his gunners to get out of the way. And then all [the officials] were looking at was did he step out, correct?”
Gopher’s coach P.J. Fleck clarified Monday that the refs never told him they were reviewing to see if DeJean was out of bounds, and that by the rules the decision to overturn the touchdown was the correct one.
“Offsides is offsides, a false start’s a false start, a hold’s a hold. Invalid fair catch signal is an invalid fair catch signal,” Fleck continued.
“Now the way the rule states is invalid fair catch so everybody thinks its above your shoulder and it has to look like a fair catch. That’s not part of the rule. The other part of the rule that was implemented years ago is the poison rule. When you poison or peter any call, you cannot advance that ball. You can point to a ball. That’s fine. But with one hand, you can’t shoo away people. At all. You can’t do that.”
