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Stephen Holder
It has become a strangely familiar sight: A player streaking toward the end zone, well beyond the reach of defenders, a touchdown looking like a certainty.
And then …
Just before crossing the goal line, the ball carrier suffers a massive lapse in judgment and drops the ball, then sometimes tries to recover it as it bounces out of the back of the end zone. After a review, the apparent touchdown is overturned and changed to a touchback, giving the opposing team possession.
It has happened in each of the past two weeks, and the teams victimized by those gaffes will meet Sunday when the Indianapolis Colts host the Arizona Cardinals (1 p.m. ET, Fox).
Cardinals running back Emari Demercado was the latest to commit this blunder when he dropped the ball just short of the goal line on a would-be 72-yard touchdown against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. The ball bounced out of the back of the end zone for a touchback. Demercado’s mistake helped pave the way for the Titans to pull off a fourth-quarter rally from a 21-6 deficit to win 22-21.
“Gotta be smarter,” Demercado said in a somber postgame interview. “Simple as that.”
A week earlier, Colts receiver Adonai Mitchell saw what would have been a dazzling 76-yard touchdown reception devolve into a mortifying experience. As he was attempting to celebrate by holding the ball with one hand in front of him, he dropped it inches shy of the goal line. It bounced out of the end zone for a touchback in what was eventually a 7-point loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
“This play hurts,” he said afterward. “Hurts a lot.”
The increased frequency has created heightened awareness for coaches and players.
“Every time it happens, you bring it up [to the team],” Titans coach Brian Callahan said. “We have a saying ‘letters and logos.’ You never, never, never, never, under any circumstances, let go of the ball until you see the letters and logos in the end zone. And that’s something that I know every team in the league preaches.
“It’s wild to me that that continues to happen. I know it’s getting coached everywhere in the league. And it pops up three or four times a year, which is crazy to me.”
And it’s not a recent phenomenon.
Former Philadelphia Eagles star DeSean Jackson committed the gaffe against the Dallas Cowboys before a national television audience on “Monday Night Football” in 2008. Play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico marked the moment with a blistering call, referring to it as “one of the all-time bone-headed plays.”
What separates these incidents from others — such as the foiled celebration of Cowboys DL Leon Lett on a fumble recovery and return in Super Bowl XXVII — is that the ball wasn’t knocked away from Demercado or Mitchell. Lett held the ball out to celebrate and the Buffalo Bills’ Don Beebe knocked it loose, and it went through the end of the end zone for a touchback.
But here are examples of players dropping the ball without any help.
Demercado, Cardinals, 2025
Demarcado’s play was the longest of his career at 71 yards.
If only it were a half-yard longer.
IT HAPPENED AGAIN 😱
Cardinals have a 72-yd TD taken off the board pic.twitter.com/BMDvEYklhC
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) October 5, 2025
When he dropped the ball with 12:51 remaining in the game, the Cardinals were up 21-6 and the would-be touchdown likely would have iced the game. Instead, Demercado became a footnote in history and Arizona lost.
That was a reality his coach did not handle very well. Jonathan Gannon was seen screaming at Demercado on the sideline in the play’s aftermath. Gannon apologized on Monday, saying he regretted his behavior. And Monday evening, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the Cardinals are fining Gannon $100,000 for his sideline altercation with Demercado. It was a sharp contrast to the reaction of offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr., who consoled Demercado after the play and tried to build him up at a tough time.
“I wanted to be one of the first people to find him on the sideline and tell him, ‘Hey, wipe it off and keep going,'” Johnson said. “I wanted to make sure he heard that from somebody up front, and he’s not catching looks and stares and people mumbling left and right. I wanted to create the energy around him.”
Mitchell, Colts, 2025
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better catch-and-run in the NFL this season than Mitchell’s 75-yard play against the Rams. He made a late adjustment to the underthrown pass from quarterback Daniel Jones, then used a spin move to free himself from two defenders who he outran down the sideline.
Ball is out before it crosses the goal line. It’s a touchback!
INDvsLAR on FOX/FOX Onehttps://t.co/HkKw7uXnxV pic.twitter.com/DtuT1kDX9s
— NFL (@NFL) September 28, 2025
But he did all of that work only to drop the ball before reaching the goal line. Mitchell seemed to realize his mistake in real time, chasing the ball down but unable to corral it before it bounced out of the back of the end zone.
It was not only a costly mistake, but a frustrating one. Coach Shane Steichen had been regularly imploring his players to be aware of such mistakes since Colts running back Jonathan Taylor’s similar gaffe last season, but Mitchell must not have gotten the message.
For that reason, Steichen took the mistake-prone young player out of the starting lineup last Sunday.
“He’s got to earn it,” Steichen said.
Battle, a safety, was a half step from the first touchdown of his career after scooping up a Titans fumble and dashing 61 yards toward the end zone, but just before crossing the goal line, he carelessly lost control of the ball.
“I knew as soon as I did it,” Battle recalled on Tuesday. “It slipped out of my hands. I knew exactly when it happened. That’s why I told [teammates] not to celebrate when I scored.”
The play was ruled a touchback and Tennessee received the ball. And Battle has still never scored a touchdown.
Pain 😩
Battle fumbled the ball before crossing the goal line ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/oTQRybH6O4
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) December 15, 2024
“It’s a weird feeling,” Battle said.
Battle gave advice to other players who might find themselves in a similar situation.
“Just run through the end zone with the ball and then celebrate,” he said.
And if he’s ever in a similar situation again, he said, “I might run to the locker room.”
Taylor, Colts, 2024
Taylor broke loose for what would have been a 41-yard touchdown in a pivotal late-season game against the Broncos. The touchdown would have given the Colts a two-touchdown lead in a contest that had significant impact on the AFC wild-card race.
Call overturned! This TD was ruled a touchback 😳 pic.twitter.com/jRlTeq9QQs
— NFL (@NFL) December 15, 2024
But the 2021 rushing champion had done the unthinkable, dropping the ball just before reaching the goal line and breaking into a celebration. The Broncos gained possession after replay, the Colts lost significant momentum and, ultimately, the game.
“It just can’t happen, no matter the game, no matter the scenario,” Taylor said later.
What should have been the pinnacle of Corley’s football career became his most regrettable moment. On just his second touch of the season, the rookie receiver was handed the ball on an end-around and found a clear path to the end zone down the sideline. But he let go of the ball just before crossing the goal line and his first-ever touchdown was overturned.
TD @CorleyMalachi!!#HOUvsNYJ on @NFLonPrime pic.twitter.com/PSt7uVeRru
— New York Jets (@nyjets) November 1, 2024
The Houston Texans were awarded the ball after the play resulted in a touchback, and Corley’s 18-yard run was the last time he saw the football that night.
Fortunately for him, the Jets prevailed 21-13, and a week after the game, he wasn’t letting the frustration from the play linger.
“You take things with a grain of salt,” he said at the time. “You play this game for a long time and you see a lot more and a lot less embarrassing things happen on the field. For me, it was a great learning experience overall. I was still extremely excited to run across the end zone line and be able to jet around the field and do all that type of stuff. So it was fun overall.”
Corley, a third-round pick, was released after the season and is now with the Cleveland Browns. He has yet to score a touchdown.
There’s perhaps nothing better for a defensive player than scoring a touchdown. Trevathan, a former Broncos linebacker, seemed headed for the first TD of his career when he picked off then-Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco and raced toward the end zone.
But Trevathan dropped the ball before crossing the goal line and the ball bounced out of bounds in the end zone. Baltimore was awarded possession on the touchback and Trevathan would have to wait two more years before scoring the lone touchdown of his career.
“It was a young mistake,” Trevathan, who was in his second season at the time, said after the Broncos won in a blowout. “It’s not going to happen again.”
Jackson, Eagles, 2008
Jackson, in his prime, was among the most electric players in football, and this play was a perfect example. Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb dropped back and uncorked a deep ball down the seam to the rookie wideout, who had gotten behind the Dallas defense. Jackson caught the ball in stride and crossed the goal line untouched.
But in doing so, he forgot the football. Jackson, perhaps in a rush to celebrate the apparent 61-yard touchdown, tossed the ball aside before crossing the plane and the Cowboys challenged the play. The touchdown was overturned and the ball was ruled down at the 1-yard line because there was no immediate recovery by the Cowboys. The Eagles retained possession at the 1-yard line and eventually scored, but the memory of the play lingered.
“I’ve had a lot of people messing around with me about it,” Jackson, now the head coach at Delaware State, said at the time. “But I’m just going to move on with it. I’ve got a lot more football to play.”
The Eagles went on to lose the game, 41-37.
Turron Davenport, Josh Weinfuss and Ben Baby contributed to this report.
