Why couldn't the Dolphins challenge..

[StanleySpadowski]

The pass/lateral to Barber? I've been waiting to see a decent explanation and haven't really seen it discussed by anyone.

It seems to me that a play like that is what replay was created for and I seem to remember similar plays being challenged in the past.

 

[CanadianCowboysFan]

Who knows, maybe because they blew it as dead ball and we recovered it anyway so it really made no difference?

I have given up figuring out the refs calls.

 

[dallasfaniac]

They blew the whistle when Barber still hadn't tried halfheartedly to scoop it up; if they hadn't, he may have tried harder and gotten yards....

 

[theebs]

yeah they definitely blew the call.

it was because the whistle had blown and therefor the play was dead.

 

[goshan]

If they challenge and determined it was a lateral, what would have happened?

They blew the whistle, so play stopped. When this happens, you can't challenge.

 

[StanleySpadowski]

yeah they definitely blew the call.

it was because the whistle had blown and therefor the play was dead.

I thought they changed the rule on inadvertent whistles and obvious fumble recoveries.

I would have thought that this would have fallen under that allowing the Dolphins to challenge the spot of the ball.

 

[theebs]

I thought that is something they did this year too because of teams picking balls up and running them in.

I think the whistle caused the dolphins players to stop though.

this another one of those situations where the officials call this subjectively, sometimes these are close calls but that play yesterday was as easy as could be to see it was a backwards pass.

at the end of the day barber recovered it and it only would have been a yard and a half loss, but still what if the dolphins picked it up and scored?

you could see the head official basically yelling at the official who blew the whistle and gave the incomplete signal.