Sunday brought us another entry in the files of announcers prematurely declaring a game over. With the Dallas Cowboys trailing the New York Giants 35-28 and facing a fourth-and-15 from the Giants’ 32 with just over a minute left, Cowboys’ quarterback Dak Prescott evaded pressure and threw a pass to the end zone, where Cole Beasley laid out to catch it. But Beasley was initially ruled out of bounds by the back judge, and Fox play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt followed that ruling to its logical conclusion given the time left, declaring “An unbelievable catch, but he’s out of bounds, and the Giants will win it.”
However, analyst Charles Davis quickly noted that Beasley did in fact get a knee down in bounds, making it a touchdown. And Davis went into further detail on subsequent replays while the play was reviewed by the officials, and Burkhardt and rules analyst Dean Blandino both agreed with Davis’ conclusion that it was a catch:
The NFL review came to that conclusion, too. Here’s referee Clay Martin announcing it:
The Cowboys then went for two and got it, taking a 36-35 lead. Even after that, though, the Giants got the ball back, so there was still a chance that Burkhardt’s original call could work out. But a close fourth-down near-catch of their own ended with a drop, sealing the game as a Dallas victory and making those “and the Giants will win it” comments not hold up:
This wasn’t really much of a blunder from Burkhardt, as he correctly identified the call on the field and described what would have been the outcome if that call had stood. But it is funny to hear “And the Giants will win it” when they didn’t actually win it. As the great Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
[Clippit]
