saintswhodi

You are getting your plays confused. You are thinking of when Will Smith crunched Delhomme, and howard picked it out the air. Noone reviewed Brooks' fumble, cause it clearly was one. In the red zone, if it wasn't a fumble, you would think a coach would challenge that so his team can still get points. It was more like Brooks lost the ball while his arm was going back, then he hit it with forward motion but it was already out. Not even close to a forward pass. Whatever the case, outside of that he played well. Sheppard was wise to retool the offense to keep it out of Brooks' hands as much as possible. He did great in his first stint at simply being a game manager, then winning it at the end with sandlot ball.

ScottyRo

The fact is Brooks fumbled the ball and pushed it forward with the momentum of his arm. The ball was clearly came out before his arm began to move forward. When his arm did go forward, it simply pushed the ball with enough momentum to move it so far forward. I wanted it to be an incomplete pass, too, but an honest look at it will bring you to the conclusion that it was a fumble.

BlackandBlue

Did your starfish pucker everytime he audibled at the line? Made me nervous, but he really had a great game, and was in charge of the offense. I was pleased.
Could have sworn it was the AB fumble, but like I said, I was foggy, so I could very well be mixing up my plays.

yasoon

Man, this board has been needing a starfish reference for a while now.

ScottyRo

As far as the tuck-rule thing with Jake is concerned, let me first say that I find that rule detestable. If the ball comes loose it should either be an incompletion or a fumble. Also, it should only be an incompletion if the QB was attempting to pass. Having a rule that nullifies a fumble when a QB is trying to tuck the ball away is stupid.

An easier way to rule this would be to say that if a QB's arm is hit while going forward, it is a pass unless the ball does not go past the line of scrimmage. That way you have two definable points by which to guage whether it was a pass or a fumble. If it doesn't reach the line of scrimmage, it's a fumble. If it does, it's a pass. It'd be a rare occurence that the ball would just fall on the line, but even then it could be reviewed with some accuracy.

The bottomline for Jake's play was that it was caught in the air and thus it didn't matter whether it was a fumble or not. Under my rule AB's would have been considered a pass because it went beyond the line of scrimmage and incomplete because it hit the ground.

I think that's a more logical way to rule on those types of plays.

saintz08

You boys could not actually be talking about the infamous Brooks air ball could you ???

Brooks has thrown air and had the ball slip out more then any other qb in N.F.L. history .

Jelly fingers had a good game , but it is his M.O. , one up and one down . The model of inconsistency .

We really need to name that pass attempt , how about the whoosh pass ???

ScottyRo

Ok, Whoosh it is. In this case, he whooshed it about 10 yards forward. It was ruled a fumble.

jnormand

Hey Deucerulez! I saw that too! I started laughing my arss off! I guess it CAN really happen to other quarterbacks!

You gotta give AB props though. The guy was a general out there. He was good. Hope he keeps it up. Especially the running. You rarely saw AB break loose for a good run last year. He's got the speed and size to make a dent. One of those scrambles went for 22 yards. Nice job AB!

ScottyRo

I tell you what, if AB will keep running when it's there, all it will do is open up the passing game later in the year when AB starts scrambling. It seemed like every year under McCarthy AB limited his running more and more. I hope this is a sign of things to come.

saintz08

It hits the ground and bounces forward .

Jelly fingers just looses control of the grip during the pass and the ball falls out of his hand . Brooks does it about 5 - 10 times a year .