Gregg Easterbrook - Is This Really the WORST PLAY?

I usually go through Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback pretty quickly, since most of what he says is anecdotal bullshit.  But occassionally I'll read something he's written about a play I didn't see, and then I'll try to find the play.  It just so happens that this week's "worst play of the season, so far" was easy to find.  I'll let Gregg tell you about it.

Single Worst Play of the Season -- So Far: Michael Vick fumbled near the Arizona goal line on a play that began with six seconds remaining before intermission. James Sanders of the Cardinals recovered and was racing up the sideline. By the time he reached midfield, only two Eagles were even attempting to chase him -- though the clock expired during the play. All Philadelphia had to do was push Sanders out-of-bounds, and the half would have ended without Arizona scoring. Instead nine of 11 Eagles quit on the play, and Arizona got a touchdown.


Philadelphia Eagles offense, you are guilty of the single worst play of the season. So far.


Here is the play (courtesy of The Big Lead).  Go watch it.  Yeah, I'm way to lazy to embed something.

Who, the fuck, was going to catch James Sanders here?  Who had a snowballs chance in hell of pushing him out of bounds?

Easterbrook makes it sounds like 5 guys could have given chase but said..."aww maaaaaan...I don't want to run....that's haaarrrrrd."

When Sanders picks up the ball he is already in front of all but 1 Eagle, and he already running in the direction of the endzone.   Sanders is immediately swarmed by FOUR Cardinals who were running at the fumble and are therefore now running stride for stride with him to block potential tacklers.  In fact, when he is chased down, one of his blockers takes care of clearing his path again.

Receivers and tight ends, as you can imagine, were not close to the ball and were not in a position to react quick enough to do much....though everyone gave chase until it was clear that they had no chance.  Linemen had no hope.

All they had to do was simply push Sanders out of bounds!  Well, they actually needed to (mostly likely) change direction, make up 10-20 or so yards, run down a pretty fast guy, and get by his blockers and catch up to him, and push him out of bounds.