The referees in Sunday’s Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles game suggested their missed call could have been avoided had FOX moved a bit faster.
The Cowboys were called for roughing the punter in the first half of Sunday’s game, but replays showed that Ryan Flournoy tipped the ball after it was kicked. By rule, that should have negated the foul, but the Cowboys did not challenge and the penalty stood.
NFL vice president of replay Mark Butterworth confirmed after the game that the officials had missed the call. He added, however, that replay assist could have intervened had FOX shown an enhanced view sooner than they actually did.
“I think a play or two later, TV showed an enhanced shot, which they can do,” Butterworth said. “We don’t have access to that enhanced shot until they show it. By then, it was too late. If we would have had that shot previously, we would have been able to assist prior to the ball being snapped.”
Pool report on Cowboys WR Ryan Flournoy’s roughing the punter play: pic.twitter.com/xLsImuSqPW
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) November 24, 2025
That will not be much consolation for the Cowboys, who will argue that officials should have been on top of the play in the first place. It should be pointed out that they also had the right to challenge, but did not. In this instance, however, everything wound up working out for them in the end.
