[Pharmboy]

I thought this was an interesting obscure football rule.

[Fred Mertz]

I'm glad I read this because the FOX announcer led me to believe that the holder pulled a boner by not spiking the errant snap.

[hchutch]

What would the penalty have been?

[walkingdead]

This is true, but if he got outside the box, and threw past the line of scrimmage they would've been able to run another down. Unfortunately time was up, so no dice. Had he threw it while still in the box, it would've been intentional grounding, and the game would still be over.

Any given Sunday...... man I love the NFL!

[robjna]

Everey time collingsworth opens his mouth , i want to stuff it with dogs#$%. The guy is of Joe Theisman caliper. Loves to hear himself speak but irritates everyone who has to listen to him. It has casued me to listen to radio broadcasts this year because of his move over to the playbooth.

[Numbers Guy]

Pereira said the only other option would have been to throw to an eligible receiver.

Two points: Go back to the olden days, before spiking was allowed: All he had to do was throw at the feet of an eligible receiver (something QBs frequently do when a screen gets busted up--you don't want the guy to catch it and lose yardage).

Secondly: Okay, he spikes it. Illegal forward pass. 5 yards and loss of down. Because he does it so quickly, there's time left on the clock. They get another shot. That's preferable to what did happened.

Pet peeve: Coaches who let the clock tick down to 4 or so seconds for the game-winning or game-tying FG. If you leave 7 seconds on the clock then if something goes wrong and it's not 4th down, you can throw the ball away (or kneel and call TO if you have a time out left).

And if your offensive line doesn't have 7 men on the line and the flag drops, you get another play because there's two seconds left (if the clock runs out, you're SOL, game *can* end on an offensive penalty).

What the coaches are saying is that they're worried about 2 seconds being left on the clock and a Cal-Stanford type of KO return to end the game.

Okay, what's more likely? A Cal-Stanford (or Tennessee/Buffalo) type play, a once in a lifetime play that will be talked about for generations, or a team committing a penalty or botching a snap? I think the latter is a bit more probable. If a team has the chance, they should kick end-of-game FGs with 7-8 seconds left, then squib the kickoff rather than letting the clock run down to the last play.

[rs79bm]

Okay, so Cris Collinsworth sometimes says some crazy/stupid things, but didn't the Giants have a timeout left? Why couldn't he have gotten tackled, and call a timeout? He still would have had 1 or 2 seconds left. OR, why couldn't he have thrown an incomplete pass out of bounds, and/or then used a time out/kill the clock. In either case, why try for a field goal on third down if you don't expect to have another chance on fourth down if something goes wrong I.E bad snap, etc...

[ewing]

Allen could have fallen on the ball, called timeout with :02 OR :03 left and then set up a re-kick on 4th down.

That is what Collingsworth missed.

[CyberCowboy777]

Bottom line - Giants players/player choked when the game was on the line.

We'll take it!

Great Game for another Great 49ers QB!

[chimera]

Did the Jints have any timeouts left? Can anyone but the QB take a knee? If the answer is yes, then obviously that would be the thing to do and give the kicker another, albeit longer, shot. Anything with a penalty is NG because of the time runoff thingie. Heaving a desperation pass to a bunch of guys who just scattered downfield seems like a panicky thing to try (e.g., Garo).

But, bottom line, the Jints defense froze. Did they lay down or what? But give the niners their props, though. They didn't quit. Its a starnge game, sometimes, and as long as there's time on the clock, anything can happen (like the Fiesta Bowl - yes!).

[Lee'sGhost]

I thought it was interesting because I love it when Chris Collinsworth is shown to be the dolt he is.

[Alberta's Child]

It wouldn't have mattered what the rules said, because the Giants would have been unprepared for it anyway. The Giants under Jim Fassel may be the worst-coached NFL team I have seen in years.

And this is from a Giants fan who is not at all disappointed in the result of yesterday's game. That team was playing on borrowed time -- they didn't even belong in the playoffs in the first place.

[LdSentinal]

WFAN (a sports radio station in the New York City area) has just announced that the NFL has told the New York Giants that the game cannot end on off-setting penalties and the Giants should have got another down.

[ml/nj]

Fassel is a complete idiot.

I mean, how could he ever expect that there might be a bad snap? It hasn't even happened for a week or two. And his new snapper, picked up during the week of the game, probably practiced snapping with the holder on his new team a few times. How could he ever be blamed for not having some plan about what to do in the event of a bad snap on a third down field goal try?

Right!

It's Fassel's job to know what the rules are and to alert the players to what he wants them to do. He even had a courtesy time-out given to him by the 49ers (to "freeze" the kicker - how stupid!) to go over it one more time. If spiking isn't allowed it hardly matters, a quick incompleted pass to an end, or into the knees of some defensive lineman if necessary, would have given the Giants a second chance without any penalty at all.

Announcers can be ignorant of such things. For an NFL head coach to be, is inexcusable.

ML/NJ

[Petronski]

You mean Collinsworth got it wrong? I'm shocked...Shocked!

[1Old Pro]

Fox commentator Cris Collinsworth

is an ass.

But, the Giants lost this game 4-5 different times, the whole team was to blame.

[Physicist]

Here's what I want to know: when the Giants intercepted that last 2-point conversion, why did the whistle blow? In college football that's a returnable ball; is it different in the NFL? Those two points could perhaps have won it for the Giants.

[Stingray51]

The game was good but I thought the Miller Lite commercial with the two women fighting was even better.

[Libertarian4Bush]

giants = losers = morons = golfing while the Eagles win SB XXXVII

[Libertarian4Bush]

not to mention that he could have chucked it out of bounds

[FReepaholic]

But the clock would have stopped. I don't remember what yard line they were on, but perhaps a 5 yard penalty wouldn't have hurt.