Replacement Refs End Quarter on a Defensive Penalty

The Lions and 49ers game is looking severely one-sided contest, but the story isn’t about the teams thus far, it’s been about the replacement refs who have made more than a few gaffes so far and we’re not even to halftime.

The biggest error they’ve made so far is they ended the first quarter after a defensive penalty.

Rewind to every single team who has ever lost a game because they committed a defense penalty (looking at you Dwayne Ruud, $20 to whoever gets that reference). The NFL rules explicitly state, as they always have, that if the defense commits a penalty as time expires, the offense is allowed to play one un-timed down.

However, it does state that a penalty at the end of the 1st or 3rd quarter doesn’t automatically extend the period unless the offense says so, but the refs never really asked Jim Harbaugh if that’s what he wanted.

The 49ers never got that un-timed down, but that really depends on who you ask. The refs ended the quarter after a pass interference call in the endzone against the Lions, but the play should have never happened. As every single frame of evidence shows, the game clock was already at zero before the 49ers snapped the ball.

So technically it was an un-timed down to begin with. I’m ot about to say the refs knew that they blew the call and just counted that play as the un-timed down because if that was their excuse, the penalty happened on the un-timed down.

Lots of people have taken issue with the officiating in week 2 from head coaches to players to former head of NFL Officiating Mike Pereira exclaiming that “enough is enough” when it comes to the replacement refs.

This isn’t the first time the refs have made mistakes like this. But hey, at least they didn’t forget what down it was or how many timeouts a team has — yet.