Kliff Kingsbury: penalty flag hits punt “like a twilight zone”

One of the strangest moments of Week 3 came on a punt early in the first quarter of the Cardinals’ 31-19 win over the Jaguars in Jacksonville.

A penalty flag thrown by the field judge kick walked over to Cardinals returner Rondale Moore and changed the path of the ball enough that Moore missed the catch. He managed to get the ball back and the Cardinals won the game, which Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury said resulted in a very different reaction from that of the Jaguars.

Kingsbury said on Monday that “it seems quite unfair that we are losing the ball” under these circumstances and that the official “should probably be ejected at this point”, although he also said neither he nor Moore knew this that had happened at the time.

“He’s tough on himself and I’m not sure if he even knew what happened,” Kingsbury said, via ESPN.com’s Josh Weinfuss. “But, it looked a bit like a twilight zone. Like, he had it and then all of a sudden he didn’t have it. And, so, I didn’t know that had happened, but you would think that maybe we can adjust this rule. “

Kingsbury said he doesn’t think a discussion of such a rule change is likely to be broached given that there are no other known examples of what is happening, but the Cardinals could submit a proposal this offseason to see if there is an appetite for such a conversation.