Why Ja’Lynn Polk’s touchdown was overturned vs. Dolphins

FOXBORO — The New England Patriots were a heel away from pulling off a dramatic (but ugly) win over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. Instead, Ja’Lynn Polk’s fourth-quarter touchdown was overturned, and the Patriots have now lost fourth straight games to fall to 1-4 on the season.
Why was the touchdown called back? Get ready for a lot of discussion about the NFL’s “toe-heel” rule over the next few days.
It looked like fans at Gillette Stadium were going to be rewarded for sitting through 59 minutes of an ugly football game when Polk hauled in what would have been a go-ahead touchdown against the Dolphins. Trailing 15-10 and facing a second-and-10 at the Miami 12 with just over a minute to play, quarterback Jacoby Brissett fired a nice pass to Polk in the back of the end zone. The rookie was able to get his left foot and the toes of his right foot down in-bounds before his heel touched the white out-of-bounds line.
It certainly looked like a touchdown grab and that was the call on the field, which sent the stadium into hysterics. But the 16-15 lead didn’t last long, as officials took the touchdown off the board after a quick review due to a technicality in the rule book.
Per Article 3, Note 6 in NFL rulebook: “If any part of the foot hits out of bounds during the normal continuous motion of taking a step (heel-toe or toe-heel), then the foot is out of bounds. A player is inbounds if he drags his foot, or if there is a delay between the heel-toe or toe-heel touching the ground.”
NFL vice president of officiating George Stewart explained the overturn to pool reporter Mike Reiss after the game.
“The rule that was applied was the toe-heel rule,” said Stewart. “What happened was he did have one foot down in the field of play and at the completion of the second step, he had his toe in the field of play, but his heel came down on the white line out of bounds. So, he did not have two feet in bounds at the conclusion of the catch.”
The NFL continues to make it nearly impossible to distinguish what is and what isn’t a catch. But by way of the rule book, the officials got the call right on the field on Sunday.
Patriots fans obviously disagree with either the rule or the call — or both. But Jerod Mayo said officials got it right after Sunday’s loss. 
“I thought it was close, but it was the correct call in my opinion,” said Mayo. “Saw the replay live, just a tough, tough call.”
Patriots players were just as confused as the fans that were in the stadium.
“Did it look like his feet were in? I donno,” said veteran receiver Kendrick Bourne. “It’s just rough. I feel bad for Polk because that would have been exciting for him to have a game winner so early in his career.”
Polk said he didn’t receive any explanation on why his touchdown was overturned, and said that he felt like he got both feet in. But he wouldn’t blame the loss on that one call, not when the Patriots made plenty of other mistakes throughout the 15-10 loss.
“It was pretty frustrating,” said Polk. “You think about everything all together, if I had just been more dialed in and taking advantage of the little things through the whole game, we wouldn’t have been in that situation. I have to find ways to get better.”
Polk had just one catch on six targets, and was also hit with a holding penalty early in the second half. That was one of 12 accepted penalties against the Patriots on Sunday afternoon.