NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Titans thought they recovered a muffed punt last weekend at the Houston 9 when the ball bounced off Jacoby Jones and into the arms of Tennessee rookie Jason McCourty. The rookie had given Jones room to catch the punt.
But no. Because the ball bounced off Jones and didn't hit the turf first, officials awarded possession to Houston and tossed in a 15-yard penalty for fair catch interference. The Texans went on to a 34-31 win.
So expect the fair catch rule to come up for discussion in the offseason, especially considering Titans coach Jeff Fisher is co-chairman of the competition committee.
"It just doesn't look right," Fisher said. "There's no way we can coach a player not to hit the return man or go after the ball once the ball bounces out of his hands. You can't wait for the ball to hit the ground and then jump on it. To me, I think we need to look at it. Again, it was the correct call considering our current rules.
"The hard thing about this play when you see it is we've got the ball first down at the 9-yard line, and now we don't have the ball and they assess the 15-yard penalty on top of it," Fisher said.
