Dak Prescott was so upset with the call that he asked, "Do I get fined for talking about this?" then talked about it anyway. "I'm sorry," he said, "that one was bad."
Prescott was referring to the offensive pass interference penalty against Cowboys tight end Jake Ferguson in the fourth quarter of the Lions' 44-30 win on Thursday night. At first glance, it looked like Anzalone might have gotten away with a hold on Ferguson before he and Brian Branch converged on the tight end and broke up a third-down throw to the end zone, with the Lions leading by 10 with about four minutes to play.
A closer look shows that Ferguson grabbed Anzalone's shoulder at the top of his route and then slung himself past the linebacker, something Anzalone was alerting the officials to throughout the game.
"He was doing that all night," said Anzalone. "I was talking to the refs all night about it, because he gets a little pushy at the top of the route and it’s hard for me to, like — what do I do? They only call it when he’s the target, so there were more reps than that. I just saw the replay and I clearly got yanked."
Asked if his lobbying to the refs might've paid off late in the game, Anzalone said, "It could’ve, it could’ve. They said they watched it on film, so I guess they were privy to it." He added later on X, "You can’t grab someone’s jersey and sling through like that. My body didn’t do that for no reason. We declined it anyways."
And the OPI aside, said Anzalone, he didn't hold Ferguson to begin with: "I had him in the low hip pocket and it wasn’t really a true grab."
Had the call gone the other way, it could have changed the end of the game. The Cowboys would have had a first down on the doorstep of the end zone with a chance to cut the deficit to three. Of course, the Lions marched to the end zone in three plays on the ensuing drive, making the conversation moot.
"I’ve got to look at the film, maybe I can see from their vantage point," said Prescott. "I know I talked to the ref after and he said he aggressively pulled through. I’ve never seen a call like that. I can say that."
The win was a huge one for the Lions, who are now 8-5 and very much alive in the NFC playoff race. A loss would have dashed their hopes like those of Dallas, who fell to 6-6-1. The Cowboys had won three in a row entering the game, the last two against last year's Super Bowl teams.
"They’re a really good team and they’ve been playing really good football," said Anzalone. "It’s a challenge playing against those guys, so it’s definitely something we can build off of."
Detroit's defense still surrendered 30 points and 376 yards in the air, but also produced five sacks and three takeaways. Anzalone, for his part, had seven tackles and another strong game in coverage, leading the Lions with three passes defended.
"It’s never perfect or exactly how you want it to go, but it was a big game that we needed to win to get back on track," he said. "We just gotta keep this momentum and turn a new leaf in the season."