Mike Florio ,
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It’s one thing for us to say it . It carries much more weight when an NFL head coach says it.
Any time there’s a ball on the ground, go get it.
Broncos coach Sean Payton was asked by reporters on Friday about the crazy two-point conversion that morphed from incompletion to recovery in the end zone when running back Zach Charbonnet nonchalantly picked up the ball. The play, thanks to replay review, tied the Rams-Seahawks game at 30 in the fourth quarter.
“I saw the replay of it, and I know the play they were running,” Payton said. “Holy cow, that was — I’d never seen anything like it. Of course, when you looked at it, the No. 1 rule, and I think [former NFL coach] Wade Phillips tweeted this. . . . Any ball on the ground, defensively scoop it. I don’t care if a fan threw it from the — any ball on the ground, scoop it. So there was a unique play though, and obviously had a huge impact in the game. Absolutely, ball on the ground. But I didn’t get to watch any of the game. I just saw that clip.”
Phillips, the first defensive coordinator of the Rams under head coach Sean McVay (and a former Broncos head coach), did indeed tweet it. “That’s why you ALWAYS make your defensive players pick up every ball on the ground no matter what it looks like,” Phillips said.
Charbonnet, by all appearances, was simply getting the ball in order to give it to the officials. All players, on offense or defense, need to know that, even after the whistle is blown, any ball on the field needs to be grabbed.
There’s no downside. As Charbonnet learned, there’s a potentially gigantic upside.
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