Report: Dexter Lawrence wasn't offside vs. WFT

New York Giants tackle Dexter Lawrence might not have deserved that game-losing penalty, after all. Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com via Imagn Content Services, LLC

Report: Giants' Dexter Lawrence wasn't offside for field goal vs. Washington

By Zac Wassink | Last updated Sep 17, 2021 5:59 PM ET

The first game of Week 2 of the 2021 NFL season has given the football community arguably the biggest officiating-related controversy, to date, of the campaign.

Washington Football Team kicker Dustin Hopkins received a second opportunity to convert a game-winning field goal Thursday night, which he did, after New York's Dexter Lawrence was flagged for jumping early and being offside before Hopkins missed his first attempt. However, multiple reporters and handfuls of fans later took several looks at the first kick from different angles and said Lawrence did not cross the line of scrimmage before the snap of the ball started.

Former Giants player and two-time Super Bowl champion Lawrence Tynes took the investigation into his own hands, and he says the game film confirms Lawrence shouldn't have been penalized and the contest should've ended after Hopkins' first kick went wide:

Just confirmed with a Giants source that Dexter Lawrence was NOT offsides (coaches film).

The referees missed it and the Giants will get the obligatory phone call from the head of officials saying, sorry we missed it. #TogetherBlue
— (@lt4kicks) September 17, 2021

Lawrence hinted earlier in the day that he knew he wasn't in the wrong.

"My opinion really don’t matter," he said of the play when speaking with reporters. "We lost the game. The refs called what they called."

Snappers have hitches, the moment he moves his hand or breaks those wrists he can go. We would study snappers every week.
— (@lt4kicks) September 17, 2021

As Tynes noted, the Giants will receive little more than a phone call from somebody within the league if his report is, indeed, accurate.

Nevertheless, 0-2 Big Blue must get over Thursday's result and prepare to face the Atlanta Falcons on Sept. 26.

Zac Wassink

Zac Wassink is a longtime sports news writer and PFWA member who began his career in 2006 and has had his work featured on Yardbarker, MSN, Yahoo Sports and Bleacher Report. He is also a football and futbol aficionado who is probably yelling about Tottenham Hotspur at the moment and who chanted for Matt Harvey to start the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series at Citi Field. You can find him on X at @ZacWassink

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