Lions' Amon-Ra St. Brown Breaks Silence On Game-Sealing Penalty Against Steelers: 'This Was So Weird'

The Pittsburgh Steelers were able to come away with a tight win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday in Week 16 on the road. Pittsburgh controlled most of the game, especially in the second half, but Detroit was able to make things interesting after mounting a comeback late in the fourth quarter. The Steelers had to make a defensive stand at the end of the contest to hold onto the lead, and that side of the ball was able to come through for the win. The end of the match was a little crazy as it ended with a flag on the final play.

The end of the game was extremely controversial. It was fourth and goal for the Lions and they were down five points with barely any time left on the clock. Jared Goff fired a pass into Amon-Ra St. Brown, who caught the ball short of the goal line and was driven backwards by a mixture of Joey Porter Jr. and Jalen Ramsey. The receiver then tried to toss the ball backwards to Goff, who ran in for a score despite St. Brown having his forward progress stopped. A flag was thrown, and it was revealed that St. Brown pushed off on the play to get open which resulted in an offensive pass interference penalty, which ended the game.

St. Brown spoke about this on the most recent episode of his show, The St. Brown Podcast.

"I knew there was a flag," St. Brown said. "I knew it was probably OPI, but I was like, 'We're gonna get another chance, like one more shot.' I thought we were gonna get one more play, but the game was over. I guess it's a rule. Never heard of that rule, but you learn new s**t every day. Bro, like this was so weird. But it was one of the craziest games ever, bro. And the OPI, I mean, yeah, I guess I low-key did push off. But I don't know. For those two back-to-back OPI calls, like that was crazy."

St. Brown did a good job of not making excuses for the loss for the Lions, and he even admitted to pushing off on the final play. The confusion for him came in when the penalty ended the game. He thought the Lions might get an untimed down, but that would only happen if the penalty was on the defense. It is a rule in the NFL that a game can end on an offensive penalty, and that is what occurred in this instance.

The wide receiver was accepting of the final result of the game, but he was not aware that a game could end that way. Had he not pushed off on Ramsey before catching the ball short of the goal line, the play would have resulted in a touchdown from Goff, even though the officials should have blown the play dead.