Giants coach Tom Coughlin was furious on Sunday when the officials ruled that Victor Cruz’s forward progress had not been stopped before he fumbled on a play that resulted in a Cowboys touchdown. But after watching the tape, Coughlin said he had nothing to be angry about.
In fact, Coughlin now believes the officials got it right when they ruled that Cruz fumbled before the Cowboys had stopped his progress.
“From what I understand there has been some misunderstanding from what I felt,” Coughlin said, via the Star-Ledger. “When I looked at the tape today, the forward progress was not stopped. That wasn’t even an issue when you looked at the tape and that’s exactly what the official told me. We all would’ve liked for the whistle to blow in that case but it didn’t and Victor was still driving as hard as he could to get more yardage. There were three or four Dallas defenders that were flying to the ball there. In one desperate effort [by Cruz] to get further up the field, the ball gets ripped out right into [Cowboys safety Jeff Heath’s] hand and he takes it and runs into the end zone. No. There was nothing to discuss there after watching the tape.”
The officials did make a clear mistake at another point in the game, but it was actually a mistake that benefitted the Giants: Coughlin was so angry about a roughing the passer penalty that he threw his red challenge flag to demand an explanation, even though he wasn’t actually challenging anything, he was just trying to get the referee’s attention to initiate an argument about the penalty. When a coach does that, the officials are supposed to charge that team a timeout. But the officials failed to charge the Giants a timeout. So if anyone should be complaining about the officials, it’s the Cowboys.