The NFL admitted a mistake on a roughing-the-kicker call on Ryan Flournoy, but they blamed the error on Fox for not providing a timely replay that showed a Cowboys special teamer tipping Braden Mann’s punt.
Ryan Flournoy was penalized 15 yards for hitting the Philadelphia punter’s plant leg. But he got a piece of the ball, which still traveled 40 yards, and that should have negated the penalty.
“When there is a flag thrown for roughing the punter, we clear the play to make sure that the ball wasn’t tipped,” Mark Butterworth, the NFL vice president of instant replay, told Todd Archer of ESPN in a pool report. “We can use replay assist to pick up the flag when we have clear and obvious video evidence that the player that committed the foul touched the ball prior to making contact with the punter.
“Also, more importantly, the defense can always challenge that the ball was tipped prior to contact. Now, what happened was, I think a play or two later, TV showed an enhanced shot, which they can do. We don’t have access to that enhanced shot until they show it. By then, it was too late. If we would have had that shot previously, we would have been able to assist prior to the ball being snapped.”
Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said the team didn’t see a clear shot of Flournoy’s touch of the punt either until later, though Flournoy insisted he had tipped it.
The Eagles ended up driving for a touchdown and a 14-0 lead.
“For us to replay assist, we would need clear and obvious video evidence, which we didn’t have until, again, the broadcast partner sent an enhanced view. I think it was a play or two later,” Butterworth said. “Their enhanced shot showed that the ball was tipped prior to contact to the punter by the fouling player.”