That was a colossal screw up by TommyLee there. He should have just wrapped up the ball and gone down in bounds, run off even more clock, kick the field goal, or else live to try again on 4th down. Based on the whole game, I had little to no doubt that our defense was going to be able to keep Carolina from marching down and scoring a touchdown, but when you leave it potentially with a field goal to tie, and NO POINTS, that was really incredibly stupid.

Love the rule. It emphasizes the importance of ball security in the red zone. As neugey said, the offense just has to break the plane so they have the luxury to be reckless with the ball near the goal line as once the plane is broken it's a done deal. I like that the defense has a chance to make a drive stopping play forcing a fumble into a touch back. I like that an element of ball security needs to punish carelessness on the part of offenses.

Payton got too cute, Lewis hopefully learned a valuable lesson and Carolina deserved the opportunity they got by taking advantage of our mental errors. The rule is fine and if it costs a team a game in the playoffs it's not a rule needing change. A team commits that error they deserve the outcome.

So if the offense loses possession on this part of the field and you are OK with it then why not make it the same rule on the rest of the field? Offense fumbles out of bounds, give it to the defense. Same thing right? It's a dumb rule if the defense doesn't have possession, they shouldn't be rewarded with the ball. You want to penalize the offense for fumbling in the red zone and thru the endzone, then move them back to the 20 but they retain possession.

I don't blame TLL in that situation.

Your job is to put the ball in the end zone everytime you get it if you can. If he had scored no one would say boo about him reaching it over.

It happened and its over.