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It looks to me like we have another classic example of a play that we can read, think about, picture in our minds, dissect it, get the rule book, look up the definition of a tag, etc, etc, then post our thoughts.
In real time, on the field, we have catch, tag, contact with the runner's other leg, ball pops loose. All of these actions happen in the space of probably less than a second. Everybody in the joint sees the ball come loose. Steve and John both mentioned survivability and selling the call. I'm inclined to think that if this were me making the call, I would have a safe call due to the ball coming out.
Perhaps not correct by rule, as Mike has pointed out. I'm not taking the easy way out, I'm saying that in real time, it may be very difficult to determine a definite time between the tag and the ball coming out due to hitting a different part of the runner.
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It's what you learn after you think you know it all that's important!
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