The Seattle Seahawks may have incorrectly avoided a turnover in their “Thursday Night Football” loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Prime Video rules expert and 17-year NFL referee Terry McAulay said during the broadcast that he spoke with NFL officiating rules analyst Walt Anderson, who told him the league’s replay review room did not have the same enhanced video shown on the Prime broadcast when reviewing what appeared to be a muffed punt.
Officials ruled the 49ers downed a punt at the start of the fourth quarter but replays shown over the broadcast appeared to show Seahawks returner Dee Williams’ hand touching the ball before San Francisco’s Jalen Graham downed the ball. The 49ers challenged the play but the original call — a Seattle first down — was upheld.
At the time, the Seahawks had scored 14 straight points and trailed 23-17. The 49ers would have taken over possession at the Seattle 18-yard line had the call been overturned.
49ers coach Kyle Shanahan threw the challenge flag after being notified from the booth by Brian Hampton, the team’s vice president of football administration, that he saw Williams’ hand move.
“With it being ‘Thursday Night Football,’ I thought for sure they’d have a bunch of camera angles,” Shanahan said. “So once (Hampton) believed that it happened, we threw it, thinking we’d get some better angles. And then they just told me that he didn’t (touch the ball). And then about two minutes later, I heard all the guys in the box freaking out, saying they saw another angle and it was a fumble.”
“They only know what they see, so they didn’t I think see what everybody else saw on TV.”
Mark Butterworth, the NFL’s vice president of instant replay, confirmed after the game that officials looked to see if Williams touched the ball after San Francisco’s challenge.
“We went through all available angles, and we get the raw feed from the truck,” Butterworth said. “And there was not clear and obvious video evidence that the returner touched the ball. After looking at all available angles, we made the determination that we were going to stand on the call because there was not clear and obvious video evidence.
“Once (referee Craig Wrolstad) made his announcement and they came back from TV, the network had an enhanced shot that they did not send at all until after they played his announcement.”
Butterworth said it was too late to change the call by the time the instant replay crew received the video with the enhanced shot.
The 49ers went on to defeat the Seahawks 36-24 and both teams walked away with a 3-3 record.
(Photo: Joe Nicholson / Imagn Images)
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