How in the heck did they recover that fumble by the backup RB in the redzone when Dansby stripped him it looked liek the ball fell into a pack of Cards, I think their backup TE recovered it what a great play whoever recovered it that was the ballgame for the Chiefs.
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Cards let victory slip away
Doug Haller
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 9, 2006 12:00 AM
The Chiefs broke the huddle near the goal line, poised to take the lead in a game they once trailed by two touchdowns. That's when the ball came loose.
Arizona linebacker Karlos Dansby knocked the ball from running back Dee Brown's hands. He grabbed it with his left hand, thinking for a second the Cardinals had pulled off the game's biggest turnover, preserving a 20-20 tie with two minutes remaining.
But fumble recoveries are the closest thing the NFL has to professional wrestling. Once the ball drops, chaos ensues. Players dive in from every angle, the rules no longer apply, possession becomes a fluid concept.
"We had the fumble, but they ended up crawling and scratching and got it away from me," Dansby said. "Two of their guys were trying to break my fingers. I only had it with my one hand. I was trying to roll my body back over it, but I couldn't."
As desert luck would have it, the Chiefs pried the ball from the same hand Dansby had repaired in off-season surgery. That probably played a factor, he said. But no excuses. Wrestling underneath the pile, "that's just football, man. Ain't nothing you can do about it."
Maintaining possession, the Chiefs settled for a 19-yard Lawrence Tynes field goal, the winning points in Sunday's 23-20 victory, spoiling quarterback Matt Leinart's first start and a decent day from the defense.
"I don't know if it was our best defensive game; it's hard to tell until you look at the film," defensive end Chike Okeafor said. "But we played pretty damn good. Just not good enough."
The stat sheet has the Cardinals holding powerful Chiefs running back Larry Johnson to 36 rushing yards. But this morning's highlights will focus on one play, a fourth-quarter breakdown that led to Johnson motoring 78 yards down the sideline, a screen pass that set up the winning field goal.
"He got in and was able to get back to the sideline," free safety Robert Griffith said. "It's a good thing Antrel (Rolle) got on his horse and got over there to stop him and give us a chance."
Many Cardinals felt the Chiefs should have been penalized for holding on the play. But at the same time, they said this goes beyond one no-call.
"I'm not going to lie," linebacker Calvin Pace said. "This is my fourth year here. Some of the things that happen to us, I can't understand it. This is our fifth week playing, and we've been better than every team we played. It always comes down to something.
"When it's time to close it out, we can't close the deal. Good teams do that. Next week we got an even better opponent (the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football). We come out half-stepping against them, we'll get embarrassed on national TV."