re: fumble or not?

This is a good one. Look at his thumb. You can say that in the VERY EARLY stages of the reach out, he was grasping the football by the side using a cone of all his fingers with the thumb on top for leverage.

Look at his thumb here, it is no longer being used to grasp the football. Look at where his glove starts on his wrists..you can pretty easily surmise where his fingers are. Based on this picture, there's no way he is grasping the football. And again, the whole key here is POSSESSION. Is he possessing the football there, or merely touching it?

That picture does not show someone in possession of a football. And if you were to fast forward a few milliseconds until the very instant before the ball crossed the front plane, the "possession" would be even less.