49ers’ Trent Williams apparently punched Giants defensive lineman Ashaun Robinson during an altercation shortly before halftime on Thursday night, but Williams and Robinson received compensation for unnecessary roughness penalties and Williams was not ejected from the game.
After the game, Walt Anderson, the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating, spoke to pool reporter Matt Barrows of TheAthletic.com about why the league didn’t cut Williams. Anderson said league officials reviewed video of the incident and “couldn’t confirm it 100 percent from the standpoint of whether it was truly a closed fist with a strike.”
“When a flag is thrown onto the field for unnecessary roughness, members of the refereeing department can review the available video, Rule 19, to determine whether there was flagrant action that should result in disqualification,” Anderson said. “We ended up looking at the video we had available, and we didn’t see anything that rose to the level of flagrant, which is the standard we have to apply to disqualify a player.”
Williams said he gave Robinson a “love tap” when he spoke to reporters after the game and said he did not expect to be fined.
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