Shouldn't John Harbaugh have challenged the fumble by Manning recovered by Upshaw? Wouldn't the Ravens have been given the ball at the spot where Upshaw clearly recovered the fumble, at around the Giants 25?
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Shouldn't John Harbaugh have challenged the fumble by Manning recovered by Upshaw? Wouldn't the Ravens have been given the ball at the spot where Upshaw clearly recovered the fumble, at around the Giants 25?
He should have especially after the ref saying there will b no advantage for the giants, in others words the advantage would be the ravens.
That's how I understood that
Shouldn't NY have been charged a timeout or penalized?
If Coughlin threw the red flag, how in the hell is it ok for the refs to talk him out of it and disregard? Once it's thrown that should be it
It was clusterf*ck by the refs, so I am not sure they would have given us the ball. In reality, the Giants should have gotten the ball first and 10, except the refs blew the ball dead. Neither Aikman nor Pereira explained the situation well, but suffice it to say there is no rule preventing the advancement of a fumble (fumble returns for TDs happen all the time).
But after the whistle blows is the issue, and I am still not sure exactly when the whistle blew. I suspect the refs would have claimed it was blowing before Upshaw picked it up just to cover their own mistake of blowing it prematurely in the first place.
Because the refs realized they had f*cked up and were in "nothing to see here" mode. I really am not sure what the rule says regarding premature whistle being blown, but that is what made the play an issue. Without a premature whistle it would have been Giants ball 1st and 10 after Upshaw's fumble.
Yeah, Pereira did not explain why. And the only possible reason is (and I am still trying to find the exact language of the rule) that the ref blew the whistle after the fumble. It used to be that after the whistle blew no one could recover, but a few years ago I am pretty sure they changed it so that a team could still recover (but I suspect not advance) a fumble after an inadvertent/premature whistle. As I said, standard fumbles can be advanced, it happens all the time obviously.
Once they ruled that it was an incomplete pass, the play would have stopped at the spot of the clear recovery of Upshaw.
I thought it was a horrible "non challenge" by Harbaugh...particularly after his horrible thinking process over the last couple weeks with challenging.
Frankly, I think he didn't understand that the play wouldn't have continued after Upshaw's recovery...that he thought it may have been a fumble, but feared that if the ref's changed it to a fumble, they would have given the ball back to New York because of Upshaw's fumble.
It was a bad no challenge.
I agree, though I think this could have been a case where the replay official might have just covered for his on-the-field brethren (and their mistake) and said the arm was coming forward and it was inconclusive and incomplete (despite the fact it was a fairly clear empty-hand fumble). But I agree, the ref basically verbalized that a challenge could only benefit us, not hurt us, so if Harbaugh was worried the Giants might have gotten a 1st and 10 after a review/challenge then he was being an idiot.
You beat me to it (I am a slow typist ;)), but like arnie is saying, Harbaugh's idiocy is especially egregious once the ref comepletely rules out any review result that would benefit the Giants (like a double fumble and 1st and 10 Giants would). The ref basically is saying "Baltimore could/should challenge."