The Cardinals nearly pulled off the comeback.
Trailing by 14 points in the fourth quarter to the Seahawks on Thursday at State Farm Stadium, Arizona clawed its way back into the game with a highlight-reel touchdown grab by Marvin Harrison Jr. Back within one possession, the Cardinals tied it 20-20 on Emari Demercado's seven-yard touchdown reception with 28 seconds left.
The plan? Kick the ball back to the Seahawks and play for overtime. But that's where things went south.
On the ensuing kickoff, Cardinals placekicker Chad Ryland failed to boot the ball inside of the landing zone, which is the area between the receiving team's goal line and the 20-yard line. The ball landed about one yard short of the 20-yard line, and the Seahawks were awarded with great field position thanks to the NFL's new kickoff rules.
"Any kick that hits short of the landing zone—treated like kickoff out of bounds and ball spotted at 40-yard line; play would be blown dead as soon as kick lands short of the landing zone," the NFL rulebook reads.
Seattle took over at its 40-yard line. One 22-yard pass from quarterback Sam Darnold to Jaxon Smith-Njigba is pretty much all the Seahawks needed to set up Jason Myers's game-winning 52-yard field goal.
So, what happened on that kickoff?
"Keep it in play," Gannon said when asked what Ryland was trying to do. "That's one of the things we talk about late in the game there with the amount of timeouts, time, what they need at the line. We were trying to burn off some time there."
The coach, however, refused to throw his kicker under the bus.
"Chad played his ass off. The game doesn't come down to one play," Gannon said. "We didn't do enough collectively for 60 minutes to win the game."
Other than that late-game miscue, Ryland had a great night, making all four kicks—two extra points and two field goals, including a 57-yard boot in the third quarter. Through four games this season, Ryland is 8-for-8 on extra points and 8-for-10 on field goals.
More NFL on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jonathan Gannon Defends Chad Ryland After Kickoff Mistake Spoils Cardinals' Comeback.
