Originally posted by coryfly:
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think that at all. I just thought it was a bad call. I disagree that his hands were not on the guy though.
His left hand was pretty clearly pushing him before the ball got there. It is a call that is made almost every time when there is contact as there was. If they wouldn't have called it then the story wouldn't be such a big deal. Calling it, announcing it, and then changing their minds after getting bitched at by a bunch of Cowboys is a terrible image though. Technically, it should have probably been holding on the defense first, then a facemask on the offense, then PI on the defense,
then a penalty on Dez (I know all of those would not have been called of course). ESPN has a pretty entertaining article on all the things that went into that one play. As a Dolphins fan, it just seems like something that would happen when we play the Patriots, which may be why it irks me.
This post was edited on 1/5 10:31 AM by coryfly
As you can see, Pettigrew pushed off first AND the ball was underthrown. So, offensive PI
could have been called too. As Chris Carter said, "It was a football play". Actually Pettigrew had a hold of Hitchens collar (horsecollar), the replay below starts after Pettirgrew let go, but you can see him still pushing.