Quote:No they didn't. The tuck rule was already in existence or it would not have been called. That was made very clear in the controversy that ensued. Eleven years later, the NFL voted to delete it from the rulebook. I have no idea how somebody can assume the rule was invented in less than two minutes by the same man who originally ruled it a fumble. Boomer Esiason said this about it: "Good call, bad rule."

 

The NFL admits officiating errors more often than you think. The illegal bat in Detroit was one of them. So were Ed Hochuli's famous error in Denver, the false start non-call in Baltimore, a whistle-blowing incident at New England, multiple clock running errors, and (before Mike Periera retired) the Browns getting four timeouts in the second half.