Later in the second quarter, Dre Greenlaw was ejected for a hit on Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. After the game, Kyle Shanahan reacted to that decision, and Senior VP of Officiating Walt Anderson explained the league’s reasoning.
We’ll start with Kyle Shanahan:
“No, I didn’t think so at all. It kind of actually blew my mind. I understand the penalty. I totally get that. Right at the first down marker. He was lowering his shoulder, but I gotta learn what that is. I get how it is with the penalties and stuff, because I think he did hit his helmet. I haven’t seen a replay. I’ll see it when I get home tonight and watch it again but there had to be intent and something unnecessary.
That was a big play right there. For us to lose Greenlaw for the whole game off that, that really shocked me. Hopefully they can teach us that so hopefully we can understand why we lost one of our players.”
That’s Kyle Shanahan being very careful about his word choices right there. Nobody wants to spoil a win with a fine from the league, after all. Even without Greenlaw, the 49ers still held the Chargers to 52 total yards and zero points in the second half.
Matt Barrows was the pool reporter and spoke with Walt Anderson to get some clarification as to why Greenlaw got tossed.
“The timing. The manner in which the player had an opportunity to make other choices and to make a different decision. Those all go into factoring whether something is flagrant. Those are just some of the factors that are considered.
The runner was a downed runner. He was already down by contact. That certainly plays into taking a look at the actions taken by the defender. If he had other choices in terms of his actions, we felt like the actions he took were flagrant in nature and that was the reason for disqualification.”
Anderson also pointed out that players are subject to additional discipline during the week, up to and including suspension.
Greenlaw himself responded to the ejection on Instagram with two words.
“Free me.”
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