Dean Blandino says official committed crucial mistake during Cowboys vs. 49ers final play

Dean Blandino is throwing a flag on the final play of the Cowboys’ season.

The former VP of NFL officiating took a look at the fateful final play that ended the Cowboys’ 23-17 loss to the 49ers on Sunday, and ultimately decided that both sides hold a bit of blame for the way the play unfolded.

“Couple things: With 14 seconds on the clock at the snap, it’s a risky play call. The players understand that you gotta get the ball to an official. And the umpire has to trail that play and anticipate and be in position to get the ball spotted, or at a very minimum, tap the football and get out of the way.”

MORE: Dallas’ loss wasn’t solely on the referees’ shoulders

With the line of scrimmage at the 40-yard line, Prescott quickly passed it after the snap, but it appears as though the umpire didn’t start trailing the play until it was ultimately dead, to Blandino’s point.

The below view of the play doesn’t show the referee in the frame, but Blandino says that he’s roughly 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage before the snap, which is where he’s supposed to be.

The umpire, though, doesn’t enter the frame until Prescott slides down at the 25-yard line:

According to the referee pool report following the game, the crew was in proper position, because the umpire has to stay in view of the entire field in order to properly call any penalties as needed. (Dallas had plenty of those.)

Speaking with Rich Eisen on Monday, Mike Pereira, also a former VP of NFL officiating, said that the process from the referees could have been handled better mechanically. Pereira says that while the mechanics of the officiating in that spot are not reviewable, the time remaining on the clock is. He points out that was a discussion on the field.

Really, the entire situation could have been avoided if the Cowboys didn’t take such a risky gamble on the playcall to begin with, or Prescott had slid a bit sooner. Coincidentally, game logs indicate that the Cowboys did get the final snap off, and that the game ended with the spike, not with the clock expiring. That means that the Cowboys did, technically, have an opportunity to throw the ball at the end zone in a last-ditch effort to win or tie the game if they hadn’t spiked it.

Let the discourse commence.