Things got chippy at the end of the first half. San Francisco left tackle Trent Williams started bickering with Giants defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson and soon both players would take a shot at each other, but Willams’ was the one who threw a right hook.
With the Niners up 17-6 in the winding seconds, quarterback Brock Purdy opted for the quarterback kneel to send both teams into the locker room, but A’Shawn Robinson gave left guard Trent Williams a bit of an unexpected rush on the play, which led to their altercation. Both players received a personal foul penalty.
Nobody was ejected.
The NFL offered a terrible reason as to why they didn’t eject 49ers OT Trent Williams for punching Giants DT A’Shawn Robinson in the face.
So, why was Williams allowed to punch Robinson in the face and avoid ejection?
“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.”
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“Just mixing it up,” Williams said after the game, according to Nick Woegner of ESPN. “A lot of tempers flaring out there, it’s a competitive game and sometimes things boil over a little bit.”
The 35-year-old Williams added that he doesn’t expect to be fined by the league for the incident.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “It was a love tap. It wasn’t that hard.”
San Francisco extended its regular-season win streak to 13 games with the victory over the Giants and kept their record undefeated at 3-0. Brock Purdy passed for a regular season career-high 310 yards and two touchdowns.
The 49ers take on the Arizona Cardinals in Week 4.
Here’s how fans reacted to the NFL’s explanation:
