DEL.ICIO.USFalcons misfortunes came down to one unlucky bounce
For the Journal-Constitution
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Philadelphia — Despite trailing much of the game, the Falcons were in a position to steal a win Sunday against Philadelphia.
Late in the game, and trailing by six points, the Falcons defense forced the Eagles to punt. They had not timeouts, but rookie quarterback Matt Ryan had a chance. It was a better chance than two weeks ago when he lead the Falcons to a win over Chicago with just 11 seconds left. This time he would have more that two minutes.
Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
Adam Jennings of the Falcons misplays a punt late in a loss to the Eagles. The officials ruled he touched the ball, resulting in a fumble that Philadelphia recovered.
But as Falcons return man Adam Jennings raced forward to field a short kick, he suddenly backpedaled and watched the ball bounce away. It turned out to be an unfortunate bounce for the Falcons. Referees ruled the ball had touched Jennings and gave possession to the Eagles, who recovered the ball. The Eagles needed just two plays to score the clinching touchdown for a 27-14 victory.
Television replays appeared to confirm that Jennings did not touch the ball. When Falcons head coach Mike Smith tried to throw the red flag to challenge the play, the officials informed him that his team had no timeouts remaining and couldn’t challenge the ruling. Had the play occurred with under two minutes remaining, the officials could have called for a review.
Long after the game, as Falcons personnel packed away equipment for the trip back home, team president Rich McKay emerged from the locker room shaking his head in disbelief.
While McKay tired to beg off the issue, saying, “I’d rather not comment on that,” he quickly added, “everybody saw on TV what we saw. It was just an unfortunate set of circumstances where we were out of timeouts” and couldn’t challenge the call.
Jennings, dressed ever-so-slowly at his locker and spoke softly when asked directly if the ball had touched him.
“I felt like it didn’t touch me,” Jennings said. “I always want to make big plays, but that wasn’t the time. It was a split-second decision, and I decided to play it safe by backing off.
“I can’t control what [the refs] saw, all I can do is just continue to play hard.”
Jennings teammates seemed eager to put the loss behind them — and not place blame on one play or one player.
Veteran linebacker Keith Brooking pointed out that the Falcons had ample opportunities to change the outcome.
“That was just one play, there were a lot of other plays during the course of the game that could’ve determined the outcome,” he said. “The replay [challenge] rule is set up that way for a reason. It was unfortunate that we didn’t have any timeouts left, but we had to burn our timeouts to get the ball back in the offense’s hands. You wish the refs had got that one right, but obviously they missed it, they make mistakes. We just have to bounce back from it.”
Center Todd McClure agreed.
“I don’t want to point any fingers, you hate to single out one play,” he said. “We had our chances, other opportunities earlier in the game to put points on the board.”
Smith also was in a mood to move on, offering the explanation he received from the referee who made the call.
“He thought that he saw the ball touch the return man’s hands, so that’s the call that was made,” Smith said. “I don’t think that you can say that there is one play on a football game that makes the difference. I’m anxious to see it on tape [but] we’ve got a lot of things that we can correct.”
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