NFL Rules Trent Williams’ Punch Wasn’t ‘Flagrant’ for Ejection or Fine

San Francisco 49ers offensive tackle Trent Williams appears to have caught a break from the NFL after his “punch” at Giants player A’Shawn Robinson just before halftime on Sunday was deemed not “flagrant” enough for punishment.

Williams lashed out at Robinson during the second quarter, delivering what some fans thought was a “closed fist” punch to Robinson’s face guard. But he was not ejected for the act.

Some angles of the outburst seem to show that Williams punched Robinson:

However, the NFL decided that there wasn’t enough evidence in the various video angles to prove that Williams actually delivered a closed fist punch, an act that would be an offense worthy of a fine.

NFL Senior Vice President of Officiating Walt Anderson chimed in, saying after the game that they determined that Williams did not commit an ejection-worthy offense.

“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,” Anderson said, according to Fox Sports.

“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,” Anderson added.

Ultimately, officials decided that Williams’s strike did not ” rise to the level of flagrant.”

“In the video that we ended up reviewing, and in a lot of these primetime 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,” Anderson explained.

“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,” he added.

“It’s a lot of tempers flaring out there. It’s a competitive game, sometimes things boil over a little bit,” Anderson concluded. “It was a love tap. It wasn’t that hard.”

The NFL is not expected to fine Williams, either.

Williams still came in for much criticism on social media:

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