Atlanta Falcons were robbed of huge turnover vs. Cleveland Browns

The Atlanta Falcons finally won back-to-back games under Arthur Smith as they took down the Cleveland Browns at home.

It was one of the ugliest — depending on how you look at it — wins we have ever seen from this team, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as these are the games that the good teams win but it could have gone a little bit more smoothly if the referees didn’t make a blatant mistake.

If the Falcons had lost, this would have been a much bigger deal. Even though they won this should be talked about as it was an inexcusable mistake.

The Atlanta Falcons had a second fumble recover vs. the Cleveland Browns but the refs said otherwise

The Atlanta Falcons had gotten out to a 10-0 lead against the Cleveland Browns in the first quarter thanks to two stops by the defense on a fourth down and a forced fumble.

The Browns followed it up by scoring on a pump-fake touchdown run by Jacoby Brissett and then when they got the ball back Brissett completed a pretty 42-yard pass to the one-yard line nearing the end of the first half.

Unsurprisingly, Cleveland went to their star running back Nick Chubb who took the handoff, was stuffed, and then proceeded to reach the ball out trying to break the goal line. Jaylinn Hawkins punched the ball right out of his hands and Mykal Walker clearly recovered it.

However, the refs had other ideas as they got together, talked about it, then decided that his forward progress was stopped. Sure, you can see why they would say his progress was stopped but where was the whistle?

The ball is officially dead when a team scores, the ball goes out of bounds, the runner gives himself up, or the whistle is blown. The refs cannot go back and decide where the whistle should have been blown. It was a live ball when he fumbled it as there was no whistle.

This tweet sums the play up, if Nick Chubb was able to reach the ball over the goal line at that point, it would have been ruled a touchdown by the same guy who decided after the play that his forward progress was stopped.

With 100% certainty, that should have been a turnover for the Cleveland Browns. Fortunately, the Falcons’ defense stepped up and held them to a field goal.

It is hard to get too mad about this since the Atlanta Falcons won but this situation should not happen again as it could cost a team the game. It was, at the very least, a three-point swing.

The Falcons did get away with an obvious Kyle Pitts holding penalty on Tyler Allgeier’s long run, but this non-fumble had a direct impact on the scoreboard while the missed penalty would have been an off-setting penalty since the Browns also held, albeit it would have negated a big run for Atlanta, nonetheless, deciding after a play to take a fumble away is downright ridiculous and should have never happened.