The Duke Johnson Fumble Play Is One Of Life's Greatest Mysteries

Through my years of blogging, I’ve learned to spin zone many a things. This however, is a tricky one. NFL refs stink on ice, so throughout the season, some calls will go your team’s way, some will go the other way. It eventually all balances out. But this one is an all timer.

However, a ton of the credit has to go to the Skins players for not giving up on the play. If 5 of your players start a pile, and then everyone starts pointing down the field as if you recovered the fumble, the ref, in the heat of the moment, has no choice but to believe you. Sure he could have taken a second, composed himself, and realized the pile of players was nowhere near the ball, but ain’t nobody got time for that. It’s a second by second, yard by yard, kill or be killed league. (See what I did there? None of that really made sense, but it is so football that it actually made sense.) Same goes for the fumble. The Skins acted like they recovered it, so in reality, they actually did recover it. Who actually came up with the ball became secondary.

And to be fair, Josh Norman was flagged for shooting an imaginary bow and arrow into the sky, so it all balanced out anyway. Kinda. The fact of the matter is refs stink, and always will stink. The Duke Johnson play, if it happened in New England, would cause Portnoy to quite literally burn NFL HQ to the ground. But since it was the Browns, it’s just another day in the life.