Hav's Fumble recovery…

from off the net

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12Inthebox

On the play, Havenstein pancakes Frostee Rucker who was trying to get inside of him. Rob rolls over Frostee, Gurley sidesteps the whole mess and goes thru untouched. He begins to fumble about 2 or 3 yards later when Mathieu knocked it out and when he does, Rob is on his back next to Frostee both on the 5 yard line. The scrum for the ball happens on the 11 yard line. Saffold is the closest Ram with Barnes coming in hot. Kendricks was a yard behind Barnes.

The Cardinals, at the time the ball came out, had Deone Buchanon and Tyronne Mathieu right on Gurley. Mathieu didn’t realize the ball had come out and as soon as he did he began celebrating and running away from the scrum. Buchanon looked like he should have the ball but never seemed to get his hands on it. Gurley had rolled from his back to his stomach and was facedown on the ground with his arms outstretched but all he could reach was Buchanon who had at least walled the ball away from Gurley towards an approaching LaMarr Woodley and Kevin Minter.

There are 5 Cardinals closer to the ball than everyone but Gurley and Saffold. Saffold had slipped or tripped coming out of the LOS and just gotten up from his knees. Sadly he never joined the scrum at all. He just stood there – not that he had a sightline to the ball or anything – in fact he was on the wrong side of Gurley. The ball popped thru Buchanon’s legs and both Woodley and Minter had it touch all 10 of their fingers – just not all at the same time.

Then Tim Barnes came crashing in made a scrum of it. He was just landing on backs – didn’t seem to have his eyes on the ball. Greg Robinson came over and stood next to the pile and just watched with Saffold. Kendricks had jumped in to the opposite end of the scrum and must have done something because between he and Barnes, no Cardinal secured it. By this time, most of the Cardinals were just signaling whose ball it was although no one seemed to have it. Then Frosty Rucker, Rob Havenstein, and Jamon Brown all jumped in 1-2-3. These 3 joined the scrum almost 3 full seconds after Mathieu had started to celebrate. 17 seconds after joining the scrum, Rob came out with the ball.

How? Hav’s #79… the longest delayed jump on top of a scrum pile and recovery of a football I’ve ever seen. I’m still stunned…