The opening kickoff proved to be one of the biggest plays of Sunday’s Packers-Eagles game, as Packers returner Keisean Nixon fumbled, the Eagles recovered, and they scored three plays later to take a lead they would never relinquish. But Nixon says the officials made two big mistakes on the play.
Nixon says that he’s sure he recovered the fumble in the pile-up before the ball was taken away from him after the play was dead. And he also says the fumble should have been negated by a penalty on the Eagles for an illegal hit that caused the fumble.
“I got the ball back for sure and then it should’ve been targeting, helmet to helmet,” Nixon said. “I’ve never been hit that hard.”
The replays showed Nixon was right: He got on top of the ball and possessed it on the ground with Eagles players touching him. That should have been a dead ball at the time. It’s hard to blame the officials on the field for not being able to sort it out when a dozen players were all fighting for the ball in a big pile, but the whole reason replay review exists is to fix mistakes when the officials couldn’t get a good view of it. In this case, the overhead replay angle shown on the Fox broadcast made it clear that Nixon had the ball. That angle should have been used to correct the mistake and award Nixon a recovery.
The helmet-to-helmet hit is not reviewable on replay, but the league office will review it for potential discipline against Philadelphia’s Oren Burks. On the Fox broadcast, Tom Brady called it a clean hit, but Burks did lower his helmet and it won’t be surprising if the NFL fines him. Not that that will do Nixon any good.
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