The Outrage Over Jimmy Graham’s ‘Controversial’ Game-Sealing Catch Was All Due To Fox’s Inaccurate Yellow First-Down Line

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The Green Bay Packers found themselves in possession of the ball with a little over two minutes to go in the final game of this year’s slate of divisional-round games after Pete Carroll decided to put this faith in his defense when he opted to punt instead of attempting a lengthy fourth-down conversion.

Unfortunately, that decision backfired just a bit when the defense in question failed to prevent Davante Adams from hauling in a 32-yard pass from Aaron Rodgers to set up a showdown at midfield with the Seahawks in need of a stop to keep their season alive.

Seattle managed to hold its ground for the first couple of plays to force a third-and-nine where everything was on the line only to see Jimmy Graham haul in a catch and barrel his way toward the first-down marker before getting tackled by Lano Hill.

When I first watched the play live, I was almost positive Hill had managed to make the stop before Graham crossed the threshold. However, the refs gave him what appeared to be a very generous spot and took a second look at the bang-bang play before standing by their decision.

This understandably caused Packers fans to rejoice and Seahawks supporters to cry “Conspiracy!” as the refs found themselves painted as scapegoats yet again.

I’ll admit there were some angles taken from the broadcast where it looked like Graham had failed to pass the yellow line and those angles were spread around Twitter by disgruntled Seattle fans like wildfire

However, while the people who are tasked with maintaining that line might pride themselves on their accuracy, it’s still an unofficial estimate—and after taking a closer look at the official one, it looks like the officiating crew made the right call.

With that said, something tells me this angle will also be debated to death.

Connor Toole avatar and headshot for BroBible
Connor Toole is the Deputy Editor at BroBible. He is a New England native who went to Boston College and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. Frequently described as "freakishly tall," he once used his 6'10" frame to sneak in the NBA Draft and convince people he was a member of the Utah Jazz.