Seahawks’ Carroll feels NFL wishes ‘they’ had called goal-line pass interference on 49ers
Pete Carroll feels the NFL regrets how the end of the Seahawks’ NFC West title game went down—and that if officials had made the correct call on the field the ending would have been “a whole lot cleaner.”
With 51 seconds left in Seattle’s 26-21 loss to San Francisco that sent the Seahawks to Philadelphia for the wild-card round of the NFC playoff Sunday instead of staying home, Russell Wilson got smacked as he threw incomplete near Jacob Hollister in the end zone. Seattle’s tight end had lowered into Fred Warner while making an inside cut before the ball arrived. Then San Francisco’s linebacker grabbed back at Hollister as Wilson threw his pass. Hollister looked for a flag for pass interference as the CenturyLink Field crowd booed and screamed, but no flag came.
Wednesday, Carroll was asked if he’d gotten “any enlightenment from the NFL” on the decision not to call pass interference, either by game officials on the field or by replay review before the Seahawks’ third-down play that ensued.
“Here’s what I would tell you: They wished that they would have called pass interference,” Carroll said. “They could look...they could see it. They wished they would have called pass interference, I think. That would probably be the feeling I got.
“Because you easily could have called it, and no one would have complained about the call—other than the guy who grabbed him. But, so, that would have made everything a whole lot cleaner, and all that.
“It’s difficult for those guys to put a flag down on the field. It’s got to be so egregious...there’s a standard to it.
“But had it been called on the field they never have overturned that, from what I understand.”
Carroll did not specify who “they” was.
The inference was clear: “they” were the game officials on the field, that it should not have come down to a decision by NFL senior vice president for officiating Al Riveron whether to overturn such a decisive call via the league’s controversial new replay-review system for pass interference.
On Monday, Carroll said he had talked to Riveron about the play—and about expanding replay reviews to include the league having access to the coaches’ film angles each team has beyond the network-television cameras on any game. Carroll said the coaches’ film would have shown the league in real time that Wilson had thrown the ball before Warner grabbed Hollister in the end zone.
Riveron, the NFL’s final authority on all replay reviews, said Sunday night after the game he checked out the contact between Warner and Hollister immediately after the play but ruled no foul occurred.
“We actually did perform a review,” Riveron told a league pool reporter. “But based on what we saw, we didn’t see enough to stop the game. But we did review it...we see the offensive player come in and initiate the contact on the defensive player—nothing that rises to the level of a foul which significantly hinders the defender. The defender then braces himself. And there is contact then by the defender on the receiver.
“Again, nothing which rises to the level of a foul based on visual evidence.”
Wilson threw incomplete on third down. On fourth down, Seattle’s final play of the regular season, Wilson connected with Hollister at the 1-yard line. But 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw immediately tackled him inches short of the goal line to earn San Francisco the top seed in the conference’s playoffs and a bye this weekend, while the Seahawks (11-5) play Sunday at the Eagles (9-7).
