Sean Payton's take on the Cruz fumble
 

No whistle? NO dead play.

Same should go for a quarterback slide. They seem to hop right up like their butts have a whistle in it or something.

Alaska

Weird play - thats all I will say. Weird play

It was a tough call for the Cardinals, but this is what you get with all the vagueness in the rulebook with a player "giving himself up" versus "down by contact".

I wish the NFL would adopt the college rule - it's a whole lot simpler and more pure in my mind. If a player goes down, the play is over. It's a man law. If a player can't keep off the ground, he doesn't deserve to advance the ball any further. Why the NFL doesn't follow the college ruling is beyond me ... anyone know why this rule is so jacked up?

I've never seen anything like that

No whistle. The official has to declare him down, not the player. A player can down himself, but its not over until the official declares it down.

Cardinals got robbed

You can say that the Cardinals had a "lucky break" taken away from them...maybe...but they didn't get robbed. Maybe it would've been different if they had hit him and he fumbled and they were denied the ball because of some rule. As it was, the guy saw himself being surrounded and time was an issue...holding on to the ball was an issue...so he went down.


What was amazing to me was that they actually covered that in the rule book...and according to the book, a player CAN give himself up. That's what he did, there is no doubt in my mind, so they called it properly.

If nobody toched him down, the defensive players started walking back to the huddle, and Cruz picked the ballup and ran it in for a touchdown, I bet the Zebras would have given him the score.

I think it would have depended on the timing. According to the rule, a player can give himself up as long as he goes to the ground and makes no further attempt at advancing the ball. If he stayed on the ground for a few seconds, then got up and tried to advance...then the ref would be doing his job by not allowing it. He gave himself up.

However, if he went to the ground and then immediately popped up, as if he stumbled or something...then he could keep going.

It was pretty obvious to me that he intentionally went down...and then the fact that he popped up and left the ball where it was reinforces that. He may have thought that he was touched after that...but if he was in fact giving himself up, which it certainly appeared...then he really doesn't have to wait for someone to touch him.

The one thing that I will totally agree with that in the future he should err on the side of caution and make sure he is downed...or pop up with the ball and hand it to the ref.

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I'm not up on all the rules, and I'm certainly no football expert, but don't the rules differentiate between going down head first (like Cruz did) and going down feet first (a slide like a QB does)?

I am not a walking rule book, either, SH, but the rule you are referring to deals with QB's. The QB will be protected if he slides feet first...but it probably applies to anyone on the field carrying the ball.

I am only going by the interpretation given since all this happened, but apparently any player can just give himself up and it doesn't distinguish between sliding, falling to the ground, kneeling on the ground...whatever. As long as he goes down and no longer tries to advance it.

This is all new to me, too, so my interpretation could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the sliding thing was made in an effort to protect the QB...to keep people from hitting him when he goes down.

I imagine that with the rule in question that there would be no penalty if a guy gave himself up by falling to the ground and then a defender came along and made sure he stayed down. Just guessing, though.