The “palpably unfair act” rule made a rare appearance during last weekend’s NFC Championship Game between the Washington Commanders and Philadelphia Eagles, with most who watched the contest having never heard of such a decree. That didn’t apply to former New England Patriots and current North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick, however, who first became aware of it because of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In the case of the Commanders and Eagles, Washington defenders Frankie Luvu and Jonathan Allen continuously jumped offsides while Philadelphia attempted to get into the end zone with its infamous “Tush Push” play.

Because the Commanders were deliberately committing penalties in an attempt to prevent the Eagles from scoring, referee Shawn Hochuli announced that a touchdown would be awarded if Washington kept at it.

Philadelphia eventually crossed the goal line, meaning the rule was never enforced, as it would go on to defeat Washington by a score of 55-23.

On The CW’s Inside the NFL, Belichick recalled that the Steelers used to deploy a similar strategy on kicks, likely referring to cornerback Artie Burns doing so against the Los Angeles Chargers back in Week 13 of the 2018 campaign.

“I learned that from a trick that your Steelers used to pull,” Belichick said to former Pittsburgh safety Ryan Clark. “Back when those PATs were on the two-yard line. Score tied, end of the game, PAT to win. And the corner would jump offside and go block it. Be offsides by two yards. And now it’s kinda in the head of the kicking team of ‘What’s going to happen here?’ And then they’d do it again and again. They’d try to beat the count, sorta like this, until it was kicked or they blocked it and they weren’t offsides. And there was a judgement by the referee, if you do this again, we’re just going to make the extra point good. Because they’re kicking from the one-inch line.”

As Chargers kicker Michael Badgley lined up for a game-winning field goal, the Steelers were called offsides three times in a row, with Burns committing two of those infractions.

Badgley eventually knocked a kick through, which capped off a late-game comeback for Los Angeles at Heinz Field.

While Belichick’s story doesn’t completely track with what occurred in that particular game since it was a field goal instead of a PAT, it’s certainly close enough to the point that it’s likely what he was referring to, especially since he would’ve been keeping a close eye on the Steelers at the time considering he was still coaching for one of their rivals in New England.

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