During Thursday night’s game, San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams unleashed his frustration in a rather explosive manner.
He delivered a closed-fist punch straight to the facemask of New York Giants defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson, a move that could have led to his ejection. However, much to the surprise of many, Williams remained in the game, defying NFL rules.
Watch the punch below:
After the game, Williams nonchalantly chuckled about his unpenalized punch and even had the audacity to suggest that he should evade fines for it. “It was a love tap,” Williams quipped smugly to reporters.
So, how did Williams get away with such a blatant act of aggression without ejection? The NFL and its officials seemed to scramble for an excuse following San Francisco’s 30-12 victory.
NFL senior vice president of officiating Walt Anderson addressed the situation, saying, “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. 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.”
Apparently, even a deliberate punch to the face doesn’t qualify for disqualification if it’s a Giants player on the receiving end.
Anderson took his explanation to a new level of absurdity by suggesting that game officials couldn’t definitively confirm whether Williams had used a closed fist, despite an abundance of angles leaving no room for doubt. “Couldn’t confirm that 100 percent from the standpoint of was it truly a closed fist with a strike,” he claimed.
Robinson declined to comment on the punch after the game but did utter something in Serbian when asked by The Athletic’s Charlotte Carroll about the incident.
The longstanding personal history between Williams and Robinson, dating back to the latter’s time in Los Angeles, seems to have fueled this rivalry beyond the realm of football. Nevertheless, the NFL’s rationale for not ejecting Williams remains utterly ludicrous.
