Terry McAulay calls out controversial ruling on critical 49ers challenge vs. Seahawks

San Francisco is in the middle of an NFC West battle on the road, facing off against Seattle. Second halves have not been nice to the 49ers this season and find themselves holding off another lead in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately for them, controversy has struck on a punt play, going in favor of the Seahawks.

Seattle was fielding a punt in hopes of getting the ball back down a score, Dee Williams was the return man. After falling down, the ball appeared to hit Williams after bouncing and San Francisco fell on it with a recovery. However, the officials ruled Williams never touched the ball.

The play was reviewed after the challenge flag was thrown by Kyle Shanahan and deemed to stand but Terry McAulay did not agree with the call. He called out the decision, saying there is “pretty clear” evidence Williams made contact with the ball and the 49ers should have gotten the ball back.

“We’ve seen two different angles where it’s pretty clear it hits the finger of the receiving team player and then there’s a clear recovery by San Francisco,” McAulay said on the Amazon broadcast. “I believe this should have been reversed to San Francisco’s football.”

"We've seen two different angles where it's pretty clear it hits the finger of the receiving team player and then there's a clear recovery…I believe this should have been reversed to San Francisco's football."

Terry McAuley disagreed with this call being upheld. pic.twitter.com/j56E25TAZN

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 11, 2024

McAulay provided an update a little later in the game, saying he was in communication with the NFL in New York. Turns out, the replay center did not have the same camera angles as us sitting at home. The video provided to them showed no conclusive evidence, not allowing them to overturn the call.

“I spoke with Walt Anderson in the command center in New York, and what they’re telling me, they did not get our enhanced video that we showed the ball touching the finger,” McAulay said. “What they had was the raw feed from our cameras, and it was not clear and obvious to them that it touched the finger.”