There's an old saying that says, 'If you're talking about the long snapper, it's probably not a good thing'. That holds true today as we're talking Thomas Gafford's errant snap that sent Kansas City Chiefs punter Dustin Colquitt chasing the ball near the Bengals goal line.
Gafford sent the snap at least a yard over the outstretched hands of Colquitt with the Chiefs in punt formation.
"It was a windy day," Gafford said. "But I’ve played on windy days before. I’m not going to start making excuses."
As the ball rolled down the field, Colquitt chased after it and in a risky move kicked it out of bounds inside the ten yard line. Punters are generally taught to kick it through the end of the end zone to avoid a touchdown by the other team.
But Colquitt's kick sent it flying out of bounds and the Chiefs ultimately benefited from the move as they held the Bengals to just three points.
Still, though, that's three points that the Bengals didn't earn the hard way. It was given to them.
"I feel like I didn’t do my part to help us win," Gafford said. "Now I’ve just got to put it behind me and move on to the next snap and move on to the next game."
"He made a poor snap," Chiefs coach Todd Haley said of Gafford's gaffe, "and I thought the defense did a great job of keeping them to three points with the position we were put in. I don’t know that he had a problem; he has been pretty reliable this year. There was quite a bit of wind blowing across there."
Haley noted that Gafford's error cost them three points (and it could have been worse) but that he bounced back from that.