49ers got away with pretty blatant intentional grounding before critical TD

The San Francisco 49ers got a gift from the referees when they didn’t call an obvious intentional grounding before a touchdown against the Packers.

The first half of the Sunday Night Football matchup between the 49ers and Packers was dominated by Green Bay. However, a late scoring drive from the home team shifted momentum.

San Francisco can thank the refs for that.

Refs screwed the Packers by missing intentional grounding on the 49ers

Facing a second-and-goal from the one-yard line with just a few seconds remaining, Jimmy Garoppolo got away with a blatant intentional grounding.

Even 49ers fans have got to admit that looks like grounding. Apparently, the only people who saw it who didn’t think that were the refs on the field. There was no receiver in the area and Garoppolo was inside the tackle box. While he was being brought down by a defender, his arm wasn’t impacted by that. The rule literally exists to prevent situations like that from being exploited by a quarterback.

The penalty, if called correctly, would have been absolutely huge. Instead of a third-and-goal from the one, the half would have been over because SF had no more timeouts and there would have been a 10-second runoff.

Instead, they got another chance and went into the half trailing 17-7, not 17-0.

San Francisco came back out in the second half and score again to pull within three points. The missed call made a huge difference in a game that was still close midway through the fourth quarter.