Shawn Hochuli and his crew were an absolute dumpster fire on Thursday night during a game between the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers.
There were nearly 20 flags thrown throughout the game with 12 of those being accepted in total. Among them was a roughing the passer call against Giants defensive lineman Leonard Williams.
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Hochuli argued that Williams came down with the full weight of his body on 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy which, by definition, is a violation of the rules. But in this particular instance, it was a bang-bang play and Williams had no chance to fall off to one side.
However, it’s not as if Williams didn’t try to abide by the impossible rule. He clearly puts his left knee down to alleviate some of the impact but that didn’t suffice. It was a 15-yard penalty, it extended San Francisco’s drive and it ultimately led to a touchdown.
What makes that call more egregious is that 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams later avoided ejection after punching Giants defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson in the face.
By rule, that’s an automatic ejection and clearly, Hochuli & Co. abide by the NFL rules and the letter of the law without question, right? That’s the reason Leonard Williams was flagged.
But no. There were instead offsetting penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct and Williams was allowed to remain in the game. Although the officiating crew saw the Leonard Williams “penalty” clear as day, they somehow missed Trent Williams’ close fist, as they explained after the game.
“When we have a flag thrown on the field for unnecessary roughness, members of the officiating department are able to review available video, Rule 19, to determine if there is a flagrant action that should result in a disqualification,” NFL senior vice president of officiating Walt Anderson said after the game. “We ended up looking at the video we had available to us, and we just didn’t see anything that rose to the level of flagrant, which is the standard that we have to apply to disqualify the player.”
There were other astonishingly bad or missed calls throughout the game and at one point, Giants head coach Drian Daboll completely lost his cool. But given an opportunity to criticize the referees during a Zoom call on Friday, he took the high road instead.
“Those guys have got a tough job to do out there and that’s really all I’ve got to say on that,” Daboll told reporters.
Daboll wouldn’t even criticize the officials for missing a clear and extremely dirty play by 49ers offensive lineman Jake Brendel, who yanked Giants defensive lineman D.J. Davidson down by his arm UFC-style, resulting in what appeared to be a serious injury.
“It was a physical game. A lot of emotions, so hopefully he’ll be okay,” Daboll said.
While Daboll refused to criticize the officials, plenty of others did it for him on social media.
