So, in his SI on-line column today, Peter King said
Now, my understanding of ‘the ground can’t cause a fumble’ is that the instant a player is down, the play is over, so if the ball pops out afterwards, it’s immaterial, because the play is over. And of course, if the ball contacts the ground (after the ball carrier has been contacted by a defender), the runner is immediately down.
But – as described by Peter King; I didn’t see a close-up of the play myself – the runner shouldn’t have been down by contact. The runner’s hand on the ground isn’t enough for him to be down. Wouldn’t this case be a fumble, since the play was still live?
I have not seen the play, so I can’t be sure. You are correct that a hand down is not down by contact, however a wrist, forearm or elbow IS down by contact. If his forearm was on the ground, he was down and the play is dead at that point. The rule reads “any part of the body other than the hands or feet”
Bradshaw was hit and fell forward, and the first part of his body that touched the ground was the wrist area. The way the rule was explained last night, that counts as his arm, so he was down by contact.
Peter King should be ashamed of perpetuating the myth that the “ground can’t cause a fumble”. This is triply stupid and embarrassing for him since that fact was played out not 15 minutes later when Eli fumbled the ball in just such an occurrence.
I dislike the ruling on the Bradshaw play, in my opinion the back of the wrist when cradling a ball should be considered “part of the hand”. Assuming the rulebook is as the announcers described then it was called correctly, since it was Bradshaw’s wrist that touched, but it’s a pretty shaky rule.
They have made another rule change, one which also was featured in this game. It used to be that if it turned out that they determined that a fumble was committed, “upon further review”, that if the whistle had blown the call couldn’t be overturned. Last night tho that apparently happened, but the recovering team was given the ball despite the play being blown dead originally, if that of course is how it actually went down.
I think that rule still exists. The ruling last night was that there was never a fumble because Bradshaw was down by contact. So instead of the Eagles recovering the fumble, the Giants kept the ball.