CRENNEL SHOULD HAVE CHALLENGED SAMUEL’S TOUCHDOWN

After further review and consideration of Monday night’s 30-10 loss by the Browns at Philly, one thing is becoming extremely clear. Cleveland coach Romeo Crennel did nothing to improve his wafer-thin job security by failing to throw the red challenge flag after Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel returned an interception 50 yards for a touchdown. At first blush, Browns fans might shrug their shoulders and say, “Who cares? We still lost by 20.” But at the time of Samuel’s play, the Eagles led by only seven points, 10-3. And if Crennel had thrown the flag, Samuel’s touchdown would have been taken off the scoreboard. Here’s why. There is genuinely indisputable visual evidence (are you reading this, Walt?) that Samuel dropped the ball before it broke the plane of the goal line. There is also genuinely indisputable visual evidence that the ball landed in the end zone. OK, so you’re now saying, “So what? Samuel recovered the ball.” That’s what we thought at first, too. Read on. As we all learned earlier this year (via Chargers-Broncos and later via Chargers-Steelers), a forward pass that hits the ground is a dead ball, regardless of whether the forward pass was legal (as in Chargers-Broncos) or illegal (as in Chargers-Steelers, if the pass that had hit the ground actually had been a forward pass). That provision appears plainly and clearly at Rule 8, Section 1, Article 5 of the 2008 Official Playing Rules. So, in Samuel’s case, his intentional dropping of the ball before he entered the end zone was an illegal forward pass, and the ball was dead once it landed in the end zone. What happens next isn’t clear, based on the official rules. Our first thought was that the outcome would have resulted in a touchback, with possession given to the Browns at their 20. But nothing in Rule 11, Section 6, which defines when a touchback occurs, covers the situation in which the ball is dead in the end zone without being in the possession of a player. So, as far as we can tell, it appears that the Eagles would have had the ball at the spot where Samuel had “fumbled” it, with a five-yard penalty applied due to the illegal forward pass. Though there’s a good chance that the Eagles still would have gotten points, the Browns had just picked off the Eagles in the end zone, after Philly had the ball first and goal on the eight. Regardless, Crennel clearly should have thrown the challenge flag -- at worst, the Eagles would have gotten the ball first and goal on the six. At best, the Browns would have gotten the ball back, with a new drive starting from their own 20. Either way, the touchdown would have been taken down, and the score would have remained 10-3.