Are We Sure It Was a Fumble?

Did the Cards get hosed?
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 2, 2009 10:16 AM CST

With 5 seconds left, Kurt Warner dropped back hoping for a miracle. Instead, he got nailed by Lamar Woodley, the ball came loose, and just like that, Super Bowl XLIII had its defining controversy. If Warner’s arm was moving forward—and it looked like it was—the play should have been ruled an incomplete pass. Instead it was ruled a fumble, robbing the Cards of one last chance to score.

But the real controversy isn’t the call, it’s the lack of official review, Jonathan Cohn writes in the New Republic. With less than two minutes left, any review would have had to come from the booth, but despite the Cardinals' protests, Pittsburgh’s offense was on the field within seconds for the winning snap. The Steelers would probably have won anyway, Cohn allows, but “if I were an Arizona fan—surely there are a few out there—I’d be angry.” (More Super Bowl stories.)

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