Surely 'Inadvertant Whistle' would be inaccurate as well. I'm no expert, but wouldn't ruling it an IW give the offence the opportunity to replay the down? Which would have been even worse for the Chargers.

How I see it, as a complete amateur, is that it was ruled a forward pass. That means the ball was dead once it hit the ground, and nothing past that point could matter. In fact, the ball was fumbled, so from the time when the ball left the QB's hand to the point where it hit the ground, it was a fumble. When it hit the ground, it was a fumbled ball that was then dead (technically due to the inital ruling, not due to the whistle, but the problem with revising the replay rules is, in fact, the whistle and players' reaction to it: see the Philadelphia-Dallas game). The team in possession of the ball immediately before it became dead was Denver, so they gain/retain possession of the ball at the point where it became dead, namely the 10 yard line, and the down counts. This is different from any kind of IW ruling, I would have thought.

The NFL is a different code. You cannot compare NFL rules to other levels.

Peace

As I said, complete amateur. I'm not even American - just interested.

What is the NFL rule on IW, then?

In any event, it strikes me as a factually incorrect term to use for what happened (and Mike Pereira didn't use it on Official Review, as far as I remember). The whistle was not inadvertant - the whistle followed and reflected the Referee's decision. The implications of that decision were a dead ball, last possessed by Denver, which logically leads to Denver retaining possession.

I do not know, but I know that with well over 200 differences from the NCAA level to the NFL Level (and about the same number when you compare NF and NCAA). I am going to assume that the application with replay has a different twist to that rule or where the ball it put after the IW.

If you kill a play when it was not supposed to be killed, that is an inadvertant whistle. That would be no different when you call a player down when they clearly do not have the ball. This was the same thing. The only difference was the NFL has replay and that is how they noticed the situation.

Peace

JR - Pedr is correct accoriding to Pereira. Go to Dan Patrick's web page and listen to the 3rd hour.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/dan...treamingaudio/

According to him "No" IW. Even though I agree "It looked like a duck and quacked like a duck, it must have been a duck."

That's a great radio show!

It's fascinating to hear them try to figure out how it all works. It's clearly complicated - perhaps it'll help people to see just how convoluted the football rules are! - yet they seem to be getting close to understanding that once the play is ruled dead, the ball belongs to the team which previously had it, where the ball was when the play ended.

Thanks for the link. Great interview to clear up some things.

Did you listen to the interview? My NFL official friend was correct and is not irrelevant.

Pereria said the "ruling of an incomplete pass killed the play, not the whistle." The whistle has not bearing on the ruling of the play and does not mean anything. The ball is put back where the was killed because that is the procedure when the called dead due to an incorrect ruling.

I actually did not listen to the interview, I hear Pereria talk about this issue about 10 times this week already. I did not need to hear another interview with the same thing. Also, I actually know one of the officials that were on the game. I will ask him instead of a lot of "he said, he said" anecdotes about the game. I will ask him if I get a chance about to ask him as well as others. I am sure he will talk about it without me asking him about it in a couple of weeks. He is going to speak at a function for our association then. He tends to talk about situation that take place good or bad that he has experienced while in the NFL. That is why I do not care what your friend says with all due respect.

Peace

That would be great to hear. Keep us updated when you get the chance. Thanks.

Too bad you did not listen to the interview.
It answered all the questions.

It didn't lead DIRECTLY to the outcome of the game. San Diego still needed to give up a TD and a 2-pt conversion and they couldn't defend either.

I love how you keep blaming San Diego Defense like they just laid down and let denver score.

No timeouts to recoup from the emotional swing and scheme a defense to stop them. Keep in mind the defense thought they had made a play and had subsequently won the game

Visiting team, its always harder to make plays on the road

I agree our middle linebackers sucks, Steven Cooper will be back in two weeks and he will make a big difference

Sounds like we should have grief counselors available so those guys don't break down and cry after some adversity. Hey, they're getting paid millions of dollars to make plays and in crunch time they didn't. And maybe we should have all games played at neutral sites since they're not up to the task of playing on the road.

No, they didn't lay down on the last 2 plays. It just looks like they did. Let's just say with the game on the line that they choked! Oh, and we'll forget about the other 31 points that they gave up. They didn't lay down and let Denver score.

And the defense didn't make a play. Cutler just lost the ball without being touched. Picking up a ball isn't making a play. They didn't make a play then nor did they make one on the next two plays or on the winning drive. As a matter of fact, when did they make a play in the 60 minute game? How can you expect to win when you give up 39 points??

I need a break, I'm getting very emotional about this situation. Where is my grief counselor?

Busy with Washington fans.