“I couldn’t remember a single negative thing that I had said about the Eagles,” Cris Collinsworth said yesterday in Philly. “I couldn’t remember one, right? So then somebody said it’s about the officials calls. And I was like, ‘Oh, gosh, I didn’t even think about that.’ … I go, ‘OK, I got it, I’m saying two touchdowns should come off the board, OK, I got it.'”
By Annie Ross
Eagles fans would take great exception to Hollinsworth, who was perceived to have had his thumb and commentary on the scale against the Eagles in February’s Super Bowl telecast.
During the game broadcast, Collinsworth said Nick Foles’ third-quarter touchdown pass to Corey Clement and his fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Zach Ertz — the eventual game-winner — shouldn’t have counted. Both plays were called touchdowns on the field, and referee Gene Steratore upheld the calls after review.
Collinsworth said he watched the Clement and Ertz touchdowns over and over again during the offseason in the effort to figure out what a catch is and why the calls in the Super Bowl were made the way they were.
Collinsworth said he wouldn’t change his opinion on Clement’s catch because the ball was moving when the running back stepped out of bounds on the 22-yard catch at the back of the end zone.
But on Ertz’s catch, a couple plays came to Collinsworth’s mind. Play-by-play broadcaster Al Michaels immediately brought up James’ overturned touchdown, when the Steelers tight end reached for the goal line after making a catch and the ball came out when it hit the ground.
“I don’t know,” Collinsworth said on the broadcast.
“I’m not even taking a guess.”
Collinsworth said yesterday in a media scrum before he does tonight’s Eagles-Jets game on NBC10 he wished he would have stuck with that stance on the play.
“The longer they talk, the more I have a chance to talk,” he said. “It’s always been a problem for me.”
Collinsworth thought the play with Ertz was similar.
“I think they have to overturn it,” Collinsworth said.
Steratore, though, ruled that Ertz had already become a runner, and when the ball came loose at the end zone, he had already completed his catch. So when the call was announced, Collinsworth was wrong. Again.
“I wish I had never said that,” Collinsworth said. “That was — sometimes, you can out-think yourself.”
