During last night's CFL game, with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats punting to the Toronto Argonauts, the Argos punt returner (AJ Jefferson) briefly forgot one of the wackier rules of the Canadian Football League.
As I learned last night, when you're punting in the CFL, if you have a few players lined up behind the punter, they can actually recover a punt just like you would we would recover an onside kick on our side of the border.
From the looks of how the situation played out, Jefferson (a rookie defensive back from Fresno State) wasn't aware of the rule and acted like he was fielding a punt back in the states. That prompted a Tiger-Cats defender to pounce on the loose ball up, and roll a time or two before popping up and sprinting into the end zone.
Crazy, right? In Jefferson's defense, he didn't look like the only guy who didn't know what was going on.
You have to wonder if this was just a product of a rookie making a mistake and not knowing the zany rule differences between the CFL and football in America, or if it was a strategic coaching decision to use the CFL rules to their advantage when they saw a rookie punt returner back there.
Either way, it was something exciting that we'll never see once college football (and the NFL) comes back on in a few weeks, so appreciate it while you can.