With about two and a half minutes remaining in the game, the Atlanta Falcons defense faced the San Francisco 49ers' offense on a 1st and goal from the 4-yard line. Atlanta had to hold the Niners to a field goal attempt if they were to stay in this Week 7 Monday Night Football contest.
Christian McCaffrey took a handoff from Mac Jones and had forward progress stopped at about the 2-yard line, except for the fact that he had a 49ers offensive lineman pull him the extra two yards and into the end zone. No penalty was called.
On the live broadcast, Cris Collinsworth revisited the replay and brought in rules analyst Terry McCauly to give his take.
"Clearly there is a pulling the runner happening on this play, right?" Collinsworth asked.
Terry McCauly bluntly explained the horrendous no-call in the Falcons' SNF loss
"It's illegal to lift or pull the runner in any direction and number 75 clearly grabs him and pulls him into the end zone. This should have been a foul for helping the runner, 10-yard penalty from the spot of the foul," McCauly answered.
Plenty of fans and even NFL experts took to social media to express their disagreement with the officials' non-call.
And, they are correct in their assessment. McCauly nailed it. Rookie 49ers guard Connor Colby, a seventh-round pick out of Iowa, should have been called for a penalty there. If Colby had been penalized, the Niners would have moved back 10 yards.
Now, we don't know what would have happened on a goal-to-go situation from the 14-yard line. But, we know it very well could have ended up differently. Had the penalty been called and the Falcons defense held San Francisco to a field goal attempt, Atlanta's offense would've had a chance to win the game.
There are a lot of "would've" and "should've" sentiments here, understandably so. However, we just witnessed a nearly-impossible comeback earlier in this Week 7 Sunday slate when the Denver Broncos came back to beat the New York Giants.
Therefore, to think the Falcons could have won this game had that penalty been called isn't exactly hyperbole. The referee crew did, in fact, screw the Falcons late in the fourth quarter. It was an unacceptable miss by the officials and Falcons fans have every right to be upset after this one.