Michael David Smith ,
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The Eagles got a big boost from a badly blown call today when Giants defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux stripped the ball from Jalen Hurts on a tush push, only to have the officials wrongly rule that Hurts’ forward progress had been stopped before the ball was out. Thibodeaux was not happy about it, but he also acknowledged after the game that it was far from the only reason the Giants lost.
Thibodeaux noted that the officials allow Hurts to keep pushing forward in a pile-up even when he has been initially stopped and give him the benefit of the additional ground he gains, but then they claim his forward progress has been stopped if he loses possession of the ball while trying to continue pushing forward.
“That’s some bullshit,” he said. “The refs, they’ve got kind of a hard job because they don’t know when to stop. It’s tough on the defense because you stop the first surge, the refs don’t blow the whistle. You get the ball out, you take it, now it’s forward progress.”
Thibodeaux said he doesn’t know how any defense is supposed to stop the tush push when the officials simultaneously allow Hurts to keep pushing forward until he has the first down, and save Hurts from fumbling by claiming his forward progress was stopped if he loses the ball.
“He said they called forward progress before he reached the ball out. Sounds like some bullshit to me,” Thibodeaux said. “That’s the hard part about the tush push.”
At the same time, Thibodeaux knows the officials weren’t the reason the Eagles won 38-20.
“You can’t blame missed calls,” Thibodeaux said. “We didn’t stop the run. They made 50-50 balls. They got the best of us.”
But the big missed call didn’t help.
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