The Kansas City Chiefs are headed back to the AFC Championship for the sixth-consecutive season after defeating the Buffalo Bills 27-24 on the road. However, their trip back to the conference title game was hardly assured, especially after their near-disastrous turnover.
Trailing 27-24 towards the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Bills confoundingly attempted a fake punt at their own 30 yard line. The Chiefs immediately sniffed it out, and put an end to the trickery. Kansas City marched all the way down to Buffalo’s three yard line, when wide receiver Mecole Hardman fumbled the ball through the goal line.
TOUCHBACK???
WHAT DO YOU SEE? pic.twitter.com/iDrRMgG0md
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 22, 2024
This of course predictably restarted the age-old debate online between fans and analysts alike if this is a good rule. Well, put Seattle Seahawks Pro Bowl safety Julian Love in the camp that this is in fact a good rule.
Love the touchback rule. There’s already enough rules that favor the offense!
— Julian Love (@_jlove20) January 22, 2024
Love is absolutely correct. This is a perfectly fine rule, and it makes absolutely no sense to me why there are so many folks adamantly opposed to it. Love’s assertion that this is one of the few rules bent in favor of defense aside, it doesn’t logically add up to why the offense should retain possession if they fumble through the goal line.
A football field is 100 yards long. At any point along these 100 yards, a player can fumble the ball out of bounds and the offense still retains possession. Folks will argue that it should not be different at the goal line/end zone… but why not? The end zone and goal line are already intrinsically different than anywhere else on the field! There have always been special properties associated with these particular ends of the field.
If you are someone who still hates the rule, let me ask you about sacks. If a quarterback is sacked in the end zone, why should it still be a two-point safety then? I mean, after all, if a quarterback is sacked anywhere else on the field it is simply a loss of yards, right?
Do you see how silly that sounds?
In the end, the play did not matter. The Bills were unable to take advantage of the fumble and still lost by the same score as when it occurred.
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