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This was definitely a funny play, but could've been not
so funny for the crew had they had to overturn the call
on the field.
The thing that surprised me the most was how fast Walt
Anderson (LJ) was on his wistle and signalling TD. These
guys are afforded the "luxury" of instant replay. Let the
play continue for a second or 1.5 seconds to digest exactly
what you have. Calls don't have to be made the split
second an event happens (that's what so great about
football). If he would have laid off for a second, he
would have realized that he had a potential fumble, the
ball would have been recovered or knocked out of bounds
(I thought it was knocked OOB)shortly after at which time he could signal his TD. Upon review, they either would have
a TD, or (assuming the ball did go OOB) Giants ball on the
20 after a touchback. No harm, the teams accept the
outcome, it was a close play and the crew looks great.
But ...
In the case of a fast wistle (which it was), and if they
determined that Lewis lost posession on 3 inch line,
Baltimore would retain posession, the down would have counted and the ball would be placed on the 3" line because
of an inadvertent wistle (in the NFL, the offense is not
given the option to replay the down as is in HS). There
would not be too many happy NY people if this happened, and
the crew looks less than "Super".
BTW ... On replay, I thought it was a TD (barely) and
Mr. Anderson got lucky.
Another interesting thing was the amount of BS that went
on after the wistle and OOB (especially in the first half).
The Umpire surely earned his game fee. I wonder how much
more of that stuff Mr. Austin was going to let go before he
flagged or tossed soemone. That would take some serious
guts to do that in a Super Bowl ...
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