Aside from the Schwartz/Harbaugh altercation at the end of Sunday’s Lions/49ers game Sunday afternoon there’s now more controversy emerging from that matchup.
Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com writes that when the Lions punted from their own 36-yard line with five and a half minutes left in the fourth, 49ers’ Ted Ginn made a nice return from his own 25-yard line getting across midfield to about the Lions’ 40-yard line.
From here, after the commercial break, officials spotted the ball at the 35-yard line, giving the 49ers 5 free yards. Smith writes that there was no penalty on the play, it simply was a mistake made by the officials that no one seemed to catch.
San Francisco ended up using eight plays to score a TD on a fourth and goal 4-yard pass by Alex Smith to Delanie Walker. Now it’s perfectly within the realm of possibility that San Francisco would’ve scored from the 40 instead of the 35 however five yards are extremely crucial late in the game especially given the outcome of the drive.
Michael David Smith further goes on to say that although the 49ers were penalized more in the game, the bad calls by the officials seemed to of hurt the Lions more. Smith points out the safety call against the Lions citing Stafford’s forward progress stopping in the end zone and a questionable horse collar call that ended up netting the 49ers a field goal.
It certainly seems that opposing teams are giving the Lions more respect on the field however are the officials still failing to give the Lions much respect or is this simply a case of missed calls?
Ref: ProFootballTalk.com,
