I don't think I agree with Blandino here. The downside of fumbling into the end zone is that you might turn over possession which is already a big downside.
Is it possible that changing the rule could create a loophole that a very skilled fumbler might be able to exploit? I suppose -- you're about to get tackled short of the goal line so you fumble into the corner of the end zone where you have a teammate but nobody else and so the only realistic options are either he will recover it for a TD or it will go out of bounds so you'll get it back where you fumbled. It's definitely possible, though highly unlikely, and another example of how every time you try to fix one problem you risk creating another in football.
That said, I still feel that even in this situation, the risk of putting the ball on the ground for a team very close to scoring will always be a deterrent.
Well, part of it is avoiding exploitative behavior contrary to how you want athletes playing the sport, certainly. And part of it is a deterrent effect.
But the main part of the rule's philosophy, I think, is a matter of how the rules of the game could be said to
deal proportionately with the magnitude of a good or bad play by the offense or defense.
As an offense approaches their attacking endzone, the stakes get higher. The moments when you're about to score, or not score, are the game's decisive moments. An offense doing things well in those moments provide them their maximum reward (a touchdown), and so likewise, a defense forcing a turnover saves the maximum number of points / causes the greatest amount of impact on the game's outcome.
So how might that defense be made to feel as if they've "defended their endzone"? Getting a turnover, via fumble recovery / INT / downs, certainly. Knocking an offense back, or forcing a FG as a consolation prize. Any combination of offensive errors / defensive playmaking that results in something less than a TD for the offense is a win, in that sense. But when the stakes are that high, shouldn't the penalty for failing in the more spectacular category (losing the football) be higher too? Merely "failing to score on that down, but you can try again the next down" doesn't seem quite like the right answer for fumbling at the point of success, no? If the defense forces a fumble
as you're going into the endzone, a la Leon Lett or in this case Malcolm Butler, surely that ought to be rewarded even if not recovered by the defense, in a way that's different than fumbling at midfield. 'cause it's
not at midfield. It's right at the point of ultimate success or failure on the drive.
Getting the ball at the point of fumble there, while it's easily explained (and visually consistent with how fans expect the game to be contested), seems unduly generous to the offense, even if "touchback, possession to the defense" seems unduly harsh to them. Treating it the same as midfield seems to not give the same escalation of incentives to the defense as it does to the offense.
I would accept either "offense keeps at the point of fumble" or "offense keeps at some line farther back" as being probably closer to the middle in terms of fairness. But I don't think that "defense gets it, for forcing a comic level of failure by the offense at the most important spot on the field" is so far from "fair" as to be egregious.