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Old Mon Dec 22, 2003, 05:06pm
mcrowder mcrowder is offline
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Location: Little Elm, TX (NW Dallas)
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I can understand giving "benefit of the doubt" when making a ruling on the field - especially in this case where the action wasn't clearly seen by the official. But on an instant replay - you can't really do that. You rule on what you see.

Also - it was NYG that challenged the ruling of TD - there was no spot to challenge, and as the Giants you certainly couldn't challenge just the fumble and not accept the spot of the ball when he was tackled if there was no fumble.

To Steve's point - that would be the only rationale that makes sense - but I didn't see it that way. On the multiple replays, the ball was kind of diagonal, and you could see a sliver of green between the ball and the endline - just a sliver. Given the shape of the ball, I can't see how you could just see a sliver from the angle we had unless at least 1/3 of the ball was still over the goal line.

Add in that he was lunging at the time his knee hit, and his knee hit before the ball - so it was travelling at least somewhat forward AFTER he was down. There's no way the ball was completely across the goalline when the knee hit - to me it was fairly obvious and should have been so to the official.
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