Breaking: Antonio Pierce Makes Stunning Claim About Raiders’ Controversial Fumble
Las Vegas Raiders coach Antonio Pierce made an interesting claim about the circumstances surrounding the game-ending fumble that cost his team a chance to beat the Kansas City Chiefs on Friday.
Pierce told reporters Saturday that the Raiders heard a whistle prior to the decisive fumble, which would have ruled the play dead. The team plans to submit video to the league office for further review.
The Raiders were ultimately called for an illegal shift penalty on the play, which the Chiefs declined after recovering the fumble. The league said in a statement following the game that a false start would have been called had the clock been running at the time of the snap. Since it was not, the illegal shift call stood, and that is considered a live ball foul.
Pierce and the Raiders would contend that, regardless of what the call ultimately turned out to be, the play should have been dead if there was a whistle. After all, there is a long history of inadvertent whistles accidentally helping teams.
A whistle would have only served to save the Raiders from their own blunder, and Pierce is not necessarily trying to use it as an excuse. In the end, as their players acknowledged, they were undone by their own lack of composure, whistle or not.
