L.P. Ladouceur has served as the Cowboys’ long snapper for 14 seasons. He has snapped for 212 regular-season games and seven postseason contests, without a poor snap in his career.
He also entered Sunday’s game with five career penalties, according to Pro Football Reference. That’s five penalties. Ever.
But referee John Hussey’s crew penalized the Cowboys 5 yards before the game’s final play, ruling a snap infraction pulled Washington offsides.
“The illegal ball movement by the center causes the defense to come across the neutral zone and contact a lineman,” Al Riveron, NFL senior vice president of officiating, explained in a tweet.
It made Brett Maher‘s game-tying try a 52-yarder instead of a 47-yarder.
Maher hit the left upright, his first miss after 16 consecutive makes, and gave Washington a 20-17 victory.
Ladouceur argued he did the same thing he’s done on every one of the past however many thousands of snaps he’s made in his career.
“I just adjusted down so I could put my hands on the bottom of it, so I could snap it in the right direction,” Ladouceur said, via Todd Archer of ESPN. “Exact same thing I’ve been doing for 14 years. . . . I’m not even trying to get him offside. I know the situation. Just too bad.”
It was Ladouceur’s fourth career false start — his first since a 2014 postseason game against Green Bay — but Ladouceur told reporters that this one was different. He said officials previously had never called him for a snap infraction.
“That’s what I was telling the refs,” Ladoceur said, via Kate Hairopoulos of the Dallas Morning News. “I did the exact same thing [he’s always done]. The guy just jumped. . . . As long as I don’t pick up the ball, and the ball was on the ground the whole time [then it’s not a penalty]. That’s my understanding.”