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 thought they 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.
Antonio Pierce said "we heard a whistle on our sideline" on the last play of the game. Team will send a video to the league for review.
— Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) November 30, 2024
There may actually be some video evidence to support Pierce’s claim. In one clip that circulated online following Friday’s game, one official appeared to be trying to blow the play dead while throwing a flag while the fumble was in the process of occurring. That official also seemingly signals for a false start just before conferring with other officials.
Gotta love the official at the top of the screen blowing the play the Raiders fumbled dead at the snap, only for the refs to then allow the fumble recovery by the Chiefs to stand pic.twitter.com/nIlKhrKlrv
— NFL Memes (@NFL_Memes) November 30, 2024
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.
