Heady play by Alex Smith helped Washington get a key field goal in win over Pittsburgh
Monday was the day some NFL fans learned what a K-ball is.
During Washington’s 23-17 win over the Steelers in Pittsburgh, the officials had trouble locating a K-ball at the end of the first half and stopped the clock. That may or may not have given Washington the time it needed to set up for a field-goal attempt.
Each NFL team uses a designated ball for field goals, and it’s called as a K-ball.
Here’s the scene: Pittsburgh led 14-0 late in the first half but Washington was in field-goal range. Washington had no timeouts when Smith was sacked with 18 seconds left in the second quarter, so the field-goal team sprinted on the field.
Thing is there was no football.
The clock stopped, then started and ran to zero. But referee John Hussey then announced there was “an administrative issue” and time actually remained on the clock.
Given what was essentially an untimed down, Washington made the field goal. So what happened to the ball after Smith was sacked?
He ran off the field with it as an official asked for the it:
It ended up being a heady play by Smith, who said he wasn’t trying to keep the ball from the officials.
“I knew we were going hurry-up field goal,” Smith told reporters after the game. “I was pretty upset with myself for taking the sack at that point, but I was running off trying to get that ball off so they could get the K-ball on, because usually that happens very seemlessly with the changeover.
“But from what I understand in talking with the ref, I think there was a little bit of a problem with the COVID (. There’s less people on the sideline, less ballboys and that wasn’t as fluid. It was not intentional. I was trying to speed up the process of us getting off and getting the K-ball on so they could go kick it.”
That field goal started the Washington comeback and they upset Pittsburgh, giving Kansas City a boost in its efforts to be the top seed in the AFC playoffs.
