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49ers have ‘several paragraphs’ of questionable calls headed to league office

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Week 13: 49ers at Seahawks

As NFL head coaches are wont to do on a weekly basis, 49ers coach Mike Singletary has registered a complaint with the league office regarding some questionable calls in Sunday’s game against the Seahawks. First, Singletary does acknowledge that important caveat at the end of his remark that we frequently mention here: referees don’t decide games any more than the weather does.

Here are Singletary’s comments from his press conference:

Every week we send a letter to the league about different calls that are made or not made in a game. Just to say this week, there will be several paragraphs that will be going to the league.

[Questioned about specific plays:] There were many.

[Questioned about an uncalled 4th-and-goal pass interference:] Let me say this before I go too far down this road, obviously there were bad calls made and I think in every game there are bad calls made. Yesterday, for me, there were just a few more than I had witnessed maybe since I’ve been in the league and I just want to make sure that our players, coaching staff, our fans, everybody involved with the 49ers, everybody that cares about the 49ers, I want them to understand that this is not about the referees. They didn’t fumble the ball. They didn’t throw interceptions. They didn’t make bad plays, we did. So I don’t want to put this on the referees. I certainly feel that some of those calls were questionable, but if we had done what we were supposed to do, we overcome that and we win the football game.

The pass interference non-call came early in the first quarter (video, first highlight). The Associated Press reports that another call in the communique to the league may include a late-game reception by the Seahawks that set up the tie-breaking field goal (video). Singletary is seen complaining to line judge Ron Phares for, apparently, the lack of an illegal contact or offensive pass interference penalty.

Ben Austro is the editor and founder of Football Zebras and the author of So You Think You Know Football?: The Armchair Ref's Guide to the Official Rules (on sale now)

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