1) On the play with Dixon...he hit the ground with the ball under his midsection, his head and shoulders were laying in the endzone...had he stretched the ball...TD
2) On 4th down...same as above...if Lee holds the ball 4-inches away from his body ( and he easily could have ) ...TD!
it was that close
He was sort of on top of the ball though so it was hard to say - ultimately it was the right call (no TD) As everyone has said, if Russell reaches the ball out on the 4th down play we score. Hard to fault him too much for not pitching, because momentarily it looked like he could walk in, but that quickly changed and he never reached the ball out.
Dixon was head and shoulders into the endzone, trouble was, the ball was down at his waist. I don't know if Lee broke the plane with any part of the body before he was down -- not good considering he was trying to back in.
I actually thought the ball crossed the plane on Dixon's 2nd down run. If it had been ruled a TD on the field it wouldn't have been reversed. At the time, I was glad we were short so we could burn more clock. I didn't know we would throw on 3rd down though.
so I wasn't too worried about coming up short the first couple times. I was just thinking burn clock burn, we've got 4 shots at this. Dammit.
And I thought Dixon got in on that 2nd down as well. Thanks for the explanation from everyone above. I assumed the ball was near his head (touchdown), instead of under his belly (not).