The Cardinals found their way past the 49ers on Sunday with a little bit of help from penalty flags on their game-winning drive.
The most controversial was a roughing the passer call on 49ers defensive lineman Quinton Dial, which Dial said was caused by Carson Palmer “ducking into” him and drawing a flag that negated a sack and moved the ball to midfield. That came a couple of plays after the 49ers were flagged for sideline interference, which was harder for most to question based on where Torrey Smith was standing and even Smith said he was wrong after the game. 49ers guard Alex Boone wasn’t so concerned with such things.
“I’m not really too worried about getting fined. I thought those refs sucked,” Boone said, via the San Jose Mercury News. “You call running into a player when nobody even touched you? If you don’t like what we say, then don’t like what we say, don’t throw a flag for it. That’s what I’m sick about this league. This is supposed to be a man’s game. Be a man. That’s what pisses me off, that guys like that work in this league and work on this field, and we have to deal with it. Whatever. It was a terrible call. They had terrible calls all game. I don’t care what the league says. I don’t care what Roger [Goodell] says. It’s the truth. You don’t like it, get the hell out of here.”
The 49ers were called for 13 penalties overall, leaving wide receiver Anquan Boldin to say “we were playing two teams today.” The Cardinals weren’t holding their tongue about the officiating after the game either. While discussing the officials’ bungled handling of a 12 men on the field penalty against the 49ers in the first half, coach Bruce Arians said the officials were “struggling mightily and that “they can’t count to three” before criticizing their attempt to explain their error away.
Arians did say he was just fine with the roughing penalty, though, so struggling mightily might just be in the eye of the beholder after all.