Jeff Triplette Somehow Reverses This Fourth Down Stop to a Touchdown for Benjarvus Green-Ellis

Jeff Triplette, fresh off his crew botching the end of the Washington-New York game last Sunday night, is not done. How he continues to be employed is a mystery. This play was initially ruled down short of the end zone, on a fourth down. Benjarvus Green-Ellis bounced short of the end zone and went in. The issue was whether he was down by contact or untouched.

Of course, the ruling on the field was that he was down. There had to be clear evidence for a reversal that #96 Josh Chapman did not contact Green-Ellis in the backfield at the exact moment he dove and  Green-Ellis started to stumble toward the goal line.

You can’t say with 100% certainty that Chapman touched Green-Ellis. You also don’t see him definitively NOT touch him, which should be the key question, in order to reverse the call. Maybe Green-Ellis just stumbled on a blade of grass with an open path to the end zone just as Chapman dove near his feet, but that certainly was not clear here.

Triplette, again, does not need to be making NFL decisions. From the below image, I would say it is more likely than not, based on the foot bending as Chapman extends for it, and that HE ACTUALLY THEN MISSTEPS, that this was contact.