Less than 30 seconds into the fourth quarter, Seahawks’ Dee Williams appeared to muff a punt that was pounced on by 49ers’ Jalen Graham. Amazon Prime Video’s broadcast shared a close-up replay of the play, which showed the ball hit off the Seattle return man’s fingertips before being recovered by San Francisco.
After 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan challenged the call on the field of no fumble, officials bizarrely ruled that Williams did not in fact touch the ball - despite clear footage of the incident suggesting otherwise. The call would stand, thereby robbing San Francisco of a golden opportunity in the red zone.
Taking to social media, fans promptly slammed the NFL for missing what seemed to be an obvious call. “Imagine being a multibillion dollar sports league and not having enough angles for review,” one X user wrote, with another adding: “That’s flat out unacceptable. Really makes the NFL, their refs, and their review process look foolish.”
Following the game, NFL Vice President of Replay Training and Development Mark Butterworth provided more insight into the league’s botched ruling - revealing that the replay official overseeing the challenge was not shown the conclusive angle aired by Prime Video until it was too late.
“Once we had the San Francisco challenge, we were looking to see if the returner did indeed touch the ball,” Butterworth told pool reporter Brady Henderson. “We went through all available angles, and we get the raw feed from the truck. 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 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.”
Amazon rules analyst Terry McAulay shared a similar story, stating on the broadcast that the NFL command center in New York was not given the all-important angle in question. “I spoke with [NFL rules analyst] Walt Anderson in the command center in New York and what they’re telling me, they did not get our enhanced video that we showed, the ball touching the finger,” he said.
“What they had was the raw feed from our cameras and it was not clear and obvious to them it touched the finger.”
As for who’s to blame for the miscue, Butterworth asserted that it wasn’t the NFL. “And, just to be clear, they did not share that angle with us throughout the review process,” he added.
The massive blunder proved inconsequential to the game’s outcome, as the 49ers were still able to secure a 36-24 win over the Seahawks.
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