Trent Williams’ punch vs. Giants: Should 49ers OT have been ejected?

Late in the first half Thursday night, as the San Francisco 49ers were taking a knee against the New York Giants, Giants defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson gave an extra push to 49ers left guard Aaron Banks. That led Banks and left tackle Trent Williams to shove Robinson back, and then Williams hit Robinson with a roundhouse punch to the left side of his facemask.

Trent Williams throwing punches
pic.twitter.com/SbumqqiY4r

— PFF (@PFF) September 22, 2023

Game officials called offsetting unnecessary roughness penalties on Robinson and Williams, but should Williams have been ejected for the punch? Robinson’s shove of Banks when 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was kneeling 13 seconds before halftime is covered under unnecessary roughness rules. But punches are addressed in the NFL rulebook under unsportsmanlike conduct. This is what the NFL rulebook says on the matter:

SECTION 3 UNSPORTSMANLIKE CONDUCT ARTICLE 1. PROHIBITED ACTS. There shall be no unsportsmanlike conduct. This applies to any act which is contrary to the generally understood principles of sportsmanship. Such acts specifically include, among others: (a) Throwing a punch, or a forearm, or kicking at an opponent, even though no contact is made.

It continues:

Penalty: For unsportsmanlike conduct (a) through (h): Loss of 15 yards from the succeeding spot or whatever spot the Referee, after consulting with the crew, deems equitable. If the foul is by the defense, it is also an automatic first down. If the action is flagrant and a game official sees the entire action, the player is also disqualified. See 19-2 for authority of Officiating department to instruct officiating crew to disqualify a player. Two violations of (a), (b), or (c) by the same player which occur before or during the game will result in disqualification in addition to the yardage penalty. Any violations at the game site on the day of the game, including postgame, may result in discipline by the Commissioner.

Williams explained the incident after the game, “Just mixing it up, man. There are a lot of tempers flaring out there. It’s a competitive game, and sometimes things boil over a little bit.”

He added that he does not expect to be fined, adding, “It was a love tap. It wasn’t that hard.”

Williams didn’t mention any specific history with Robinson, but the two played in the same division for the past three years, with Robinson suiting up for the NFC West rival Los Angeles Rams from 2020 to ‘22.

Had Williams engaged in another punching incident in the game, by rule of unsportsmanlike conduct, he would have been ejected. Unnecessary roughness rules also can lead to ejections if they are considered flagrant. But in either case, a single, non-flagrant offense is supposed to result in a 15-yard penalty, which is what was called, with a second offense triggering an ejection.

The following is a conversation between The Athletic’s Matt Barrows, the pool reporter for the game, and NFL senior vice president of officiating Walt Coleman about the matter:

Question: Why wasn’t San Francisco offensive lineman Trent Williams ejected for the punch that he threw just before halftime?

Anderson: “When we have a flag thrown on the field for unnecessary roughness, members of the officiating department are able to review available video, Rule 19, to determine if there is a flagrant action that should result in a disqualification. We ended up looking at the video we had available to us, and we just didn’t see anything that rose to the level of flagrant, which is the standard that we have to apply to disqualify the player.”

Question: Striking someone in the facemask wouldn’t rise to the level of flagrant?

Anderson: “Well, these are judgment calls and a lot of times you might end up having an open hand, often a stiff arm to the face, versus a closed fist punch, which certainly carries a different weight to it. So, we ended up looking at the available video we had and just didn’t feel like the actions rose to the level of flagrant. You can certainly end up having contact with hands to the helmet, and some of those actions would be deemed a punch, others would not.

Question: It does seem like it’s a closed fist though, that didn’t factor in in the decision making there?

Anderson: “In the video that we ended up reviewing, and in a lot of these prime-time games, there is often a whole lot of camera angles, from the ones that we looked at, we just felt that it didn’t rise to the level of flagrant.”

Question: Right, so what you’re saying is the angles that you saw you couldn’t make the determination that it rose to the level of flagrant?

Anderson: “We couldn’t confirm that 100 percent from the standpoint of was it truly a closed fist with a strike, we just couldn’t determine that.”

(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)