The Carolina Panthers and Green Bay Packers battled to the very end on Sunday. Carolina fell short of a comeback attempt against Green Bay, falling to 2-13 amid a dismal season. Green Bay survived and eluded another crushing defeat to improve to 7-8. The game’s conclusion drew a significant reaction after a hurry-up attempt went south.
Bryce Young tried to lead the Panthers on to hike the ball with the time waning. But he wasn’t able to get the snap off as it took too long for everyone to set up and launch. Young attempted to spike the ball to freeze the clock. But it was just too little, too late. Officials ruled that the game was over and that Young didn’t get the spike off.
Some argued that perhaps there was enough time for it to go off. However, referee Walt Anderson explained after the game why it ended how it did.
“There are two parts of the replay rule that are in effect at the game of the game in this situation,” Anderson said. “Replay can stop the game and restore time only if there are two or more seconds to be added to the game. But, as part of the same rule, we can assist the on field officials. What the officials were doing was they were getting together.
“What they ruled was that the ball was snapped with one on the clock, but by the time the ball hit the ground, they had zero,” he said. “And they asked us if we could confirm that and we did confirm that to them, that in fact the clock actually went to zero just as it was leaving the quarterback’s hand, so it as clearly at zero when it hit the ground. And we could confirm that to the crew.”
Just too little, too late for the Panthers. Better luck next time, unfortunately.
