Cardinals coach Bruce Arians didn’t have a good explanation for the lack of a review of Carson Palmer’s fumble which was returned for a touchdown by Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis, which Arians thought was clearly a forward pass.
And apparently, the league and the television network couldn’t provide a satisfactory answer either.
According to Bob McManaman of the Arizona Republic, Arians said the problem stemmed from the fact the FOX feed to the Cardinals coaching box wasn’t working properly.
“They shut it down to fix it,” Arians said, “and that’s when the play occurred. So there was no instant-replay feed. It was confirmed a forward pass, an obvious forward pass, but no one had an instant-replay feed to look at it.
“The replay official upstairs went with his naked eye so he went with the call in the field because there was no video to watch at that point in time … Including in New York [at league headquarters].”
A league source confirmed Arians’ description of the process, saying the instant replay booth in the stadium and the league’s review center in New York weren’t getting the correct feed, which kept them from reviewing the play more thoroughly.
Arians said that’s the explanation he got at halftime, and when asked how he felt about the clarification on Monday, he replied: “How do you think?”
The play triggered a first-half avalanche for the Panthers, who rolled to an easy win. And Arians and the Cardinals deserve to be angry, because the basic expectation if you’re going to have a system of video review is that it works.