Here’s why that crazy Steelers-Broncos touchback was in fact a touchback
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Markus Wheaton had a rough day in place of Antonio Brown as the Steelers return man. In a one-point game, he bobbled a ball close to the end zone, but luckily teammate Ross Cockrell hopped on top of it.
This is a pretty complicated play here! There are a lot of different possible ways a player recovering a bouncing ball toward the end zone can be determined to be a touchback, safety, or down at the 1-yard line.
In this case, the ball is bouncing toward the end zone because of a kick. The ball is muffed, but it doesn’t change the momentum of the ball towards the end zone. Since nobody fields the ball cleanly in the field of play, it’s still considered part of the kick. Cockrell touches the ball first while at about the 3-yard line, but keeps bobbling the ball until part of his body is in the end zone. And if a player recovers a kick when part of their body is in the end zone, that makes it a touchback.
Cockrell actually saves his team quite a bit by bobbling the ball in the field of play instead of cleanly recovering it at the 1. Either way, Fitzgerald Toussaint would fumble the ball and the Broncos would get the ball back and score, so the play turned out to be rather inconsequential.
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