Arizona Cardinals Rashad Johnson makes birdbrain play of the game versus San Diego Chargers

You can almost see what Arizona Cardinals Rashad Johnson was thinking when the ball bounced to him and he was being tackled -

"Where the Hell is Peterson? I need to flip the ball to him for the TD."

Problem was, Patrick wasn't nearby and I guess out the corner of one's eye - 94 looks close enough to 21. So you do what anyone else in that predicament would do - you orchestrate the "Stanford" flip, watch Peterson run over the trombone player and celebrate the lateral heard around the world.

Wrong again, Leon Lett -breath.

The play

Chargers ball, 2nd and 1 at the Arizona 1, late in the first half..Phillip Rivers could have done a quarterback sneak to tack another score on. But the ever dangerous Ken Whisenhunt called for a dive play over left tackle with Ryan Mathews. Mathews broke the line of scrimmage when Ricky Lumpkin caused a strip of the ball. Unbelievably, it bounced directly to Johnson who seemed to a fairly clean path to the opposite end zone but instead chose to flip it over his shoulder to Acho, who evidently is allergic to leather. The ball bounced off his hands into the Chargers' Phillips who bumbled past the goal line for a TD.

The aftermath

Huge, huge momentum changer and NT Dan Williams was hurt by a non-contact buckled knee on the same play. While non game-turning -- it was stomach churning.

Could have included in this week's "birdbrain" play of the week poll other things, such as Jerraud Powers' three first half pass interference penalties or Levi Brown's struggles - but I think we have a winner, winner chicken dinner.