First, there is no way he should have thrown the challenge flag early in the game on the fumble. Clearly, the player was being pushed backwards well before the ball was stripped,which Cortez had to have seen from the sidelines. So there was no way that play was going to be overturned.
And because of wasting that first challenge, Cortez was afraid of wasting his second one in case he needed one later in the game, and he thought it was a catch and no one in the booth told him otherwise in time. Also remember that an unsuccessful second challenge costs the team a time out, which he may have been thinking was more important to have in a close game than negating a 40 yard play on first down.
Had he not wasted his first challenge, he probably would have challenged the catch at the end. (Giving him the benefit of the doubt here.) But I may be able to forgive not wanting to challenge it given the situation and the information he had. Maybe.
You raise a good point. Their usually is TV’s in the booth, not sure about Montreal. But the TSN is usually tape delayed about 7 seconds from the live action. This might be part of the reason no flag was thrown but I still stand by my original statement that the flag should come out regardless.
I still don’t know why that play is even challengeable. If it can’t be overturned, why would they allow it?
It should go something like this:
Coach throws flag.
Ref asks what he’s challenging.
Coach: The ball came out before he was down.
Ref: He wasn’t called down. The ruling was that the whistle was blown for forward progress stopped. We won’t be able to overturn that.
Coach: That sucks. No challenge then.
I know it’s a delay of game penalty if you challenge an unchallengeable call, but I doubt that would apply in a case like that until the on-field ruling is clarified.
Agree that that’s how it should work, but for some reason, that’s not how it played out.
Still pretty dumb to throw the challenge. Anyone watching the play saw that the ball carrier was being pushed back well before the ball came out. Had the player not been pushed back, then there’s a question of whether his forward progress had been stopped. But it’s pretty obvious that forward progress has stopped when the guy’s moving backwards.
[i]If Cortez or one of his assistant coaches had seen the replay and simply decided that it wasn't worth challenging, that's one thing, but as Cortez told Drew Edwards afterwards, he didn't see the replay and no one brought it to his attention:
The first-year coach said he didn't see a replay and his players didn't tell him it was a non-catch. "As I looked down the field it looked like he caught it," Cortez said. "It never crossed my mind to challenge."
That's a problematic explanation, especially considering that Cortez also delivered it after a Week One loss to the Riders following what looked like a non-catch from Weston Dressler. It's not necessarily that Cortez has to watch every replay of every potentially-controversial play; he undoubtedly has a lot of things on his mind during the game, the sideline's full of distractions, and it isn't always easy for someone on the line to get a good look at video. The Tiger-Cats clearly need to firm up their procedure for determining when to challenge, though, perhaps by having someone in the coaches' booth or someone on the sidelines specifically focus on replays[/i]...