San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan made a good challenge. It’s not his fault the replay officials missed the call.
In the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s game, it appeared a punt hit the Seattle Seahawks’ punt returner Dee Williams, then the 49ers had a clear recovery. On the field it was called Seahawks ball, so Shanahan threw the red flag.
On the replay, it’s pretty clear the ball hit Williams’ finger. Officials said the call on the field stood and it was still Seahawks’ ball.
On the Amazon Prime Video broadcast, rules analyst Terry McAulay said two replay angles showed it hit Williams and it should be 49ers ball. Announcers Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit agreed.
“Seattle catches a break,” Herbstreit said.
Later in the broadcast, McAulay came back on and gave a startling explanation to why the call might not have been reversed: The NFL, which makes more than $20 billion annually, didn’t have the access to the same enhanced replay footage that was on the Amazon Prime Video broadcast. Seriously.
“I spoke with Walt Anderson in the command center in New York,” McAulay said on the broadcast. “What they’re telling me, they didn’t get our enhanced video that we showed the ball touching the finger. What they had was the raw feed from our cameras and it was not clear and obvious to them that it touched the finger.”
Instead of the 49ers having the ball deep in Seahawks territory after a turnover, the Seahawks retained possession. The 49ers forced a punt after that but should have been in field-goal range with the turnover.
Not much is going to anger a coach more than challenging a call, being right and still not getting the result he was looking for. Shanahan made the right call to challenge the ruling on the field Thursday night. Officials ultimately got it wrong. Maybe the NFL should look into improving the quality of their replays.
