Browns cornerback Tramon Williams says the league office told the team that officials erroneously called Williams offside on a late-game missed field goal try by the Chargers, giving kicker Josh Lambo another shot at winning the game. And he did.
The league office says otherwise.
“No, it is not true,” NFL spokesman Michael Signora said in response, via Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon-Journal. “The video we have is inconclusive because we do not have a shot from the line of scrimmage. The person with the best view was the line judge who made the call on the field.”
The All-22 footage available the the NFL’s Game Rewind feature has two angles that suggest that the flag shouldn’t have been thrown. In one angle, it’s clear that Williams is lined up alongside his teammates. In the other angle, it’s clear that he times the snap perfectly, moving at the same instant the ball is lifted off the ground by the snapper.
This isn’t about whether Williams was offside (he apparently wasn’t) but whether the league admitted to the Browns an officiating error. The Browns, through Tramon Williams, claim the league did. The league insists that it didn’t.