Walt Anderson and the Eagles-Cardinals NFL Championship Game: Final Part

Let's take a wrap-up look at Walt Anderson and the Eagles-Cardinals game.

Interesting calls: (post a comment for calls I didn't catch during the game).

• 3:06 left in the second quarter, short kickoff by the Cardinals possibly hits the fingertips of Eagles blocker Victor Abiamiri (who was at the time inbounds), hits the ground inbounds, then bounces up and possibly hits the arm of Victor Abiamiri (who by that time was standing out of bounds). Some of the first replays suggest it missed Abiamiri's fingertips, hit the ground, and on the upswing hit the Abiamiri's arm. The announces stopped analyzing the play once it was not reviewable, but the proper analysis seems to be that if it was inbounds until it hit an out-of-bounds Abiamiri, the kick should have been flagged as a kickoff out of bounds and the Eagles should have gotten the ball on their 40 yard line (not the spot it went out of bounds, which was only the 27 yard line and cost the Eagles 13 yards). The Eagles eventually gained 9 yards then punted and the Cardinals brought the ball back just enough to kick a 49-yard field goal.
• 1:51 left in the fourth quarter. Eagles QB Donavan McNabb throws a pass on 4th and 10 from the Cardinals 47 and Eagles WR Kevin Curtis is unable to catch it, but complains that just before the ball arrived, a Cardinals defender clipped his leg. The replays suggest that the Cardinals defender perhaps accidentally fell down as the ball was about to arrive and while falling, hit Curtis's leg to some degree. It did not seem intentional, which might have influenced the referee's call. Also, it is not clear how much hitting the leg affected the play -- can't really tell that clearly from the replay.
  

The penalty statistics in the game (which was done by a combination-crew) compared with the regular season statistics for Walt Anderson's full crew and all regular season games:

% penalties against home team: 30% (only one of Walt's 14 regular season games had less -- strangely, a game where the home team lost despite the favorable penalty numbers). For all regular season games, 32 of 256 games (13%) had 30% or less and home teams won 66%.

% penalty yards against home team: 19% (less than all of Walt's 14 regular season games). For all regular season games, 10 of 256 games (4%) had 19% or less and home teams won 70%.