Devonte Wyatt Defends the Hit That Cost the Packers

Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt is not backing off the hit that drew the most argued flag of Sunday’s 20-17 loss to the Detroit Lions. Wyatt was called for unnecessary roughness in the third quarter on a play that ended with an official on the ground, and he said afterward he would make the same hit again.

Green Bay led 14-10 when Jared Goff completed a short pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown for a four-yard gain. St. Brown appeared to go down, then got up and ran again, and Wyatt tackled him a second time. St. Brown cleated umpire Terry Killens Jr. and knocked him down on the play, and it was Wyatt who was flagged.

Wyatt said he never heard a whistle.

“If you asked me right now, I’d do the same thing 100 times over,” Wyatt told Rob Demovsky of ESPN. “So that’s the refs. They got to figure out what they need to do because I definitely did my job.”

Devonte Wyatt Says Amon-Ra St. Brown Never Gave Himself Up

That is the whole argument. Wyatt does not believe St. Brown gave himself up before the second tackle, and he was not going to guess in the middle of a play.

“What if he would’ve got up and ran for a touchdown?” Wyatt said. “Then everybody would be looking at D-Wy like, ‘You let him go.’ I feel like I did the right thing. Flag or not, I feel like I did the right thing.”

The Flag Became Detroit’s Go-Ahead Touchdown

The penalty moved Detroit 12 yards to the Green Bay 11 and handed the Lions a fresh set of downs. Two plays later, Goff threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Jameson Williams for a 17-14 lead, and the Lions went on to win 20-17 on Jake Bates’ field goal as time expired.

There is no question Wyatt did the right thing by playing through a whistle he never heard, and there is no doubt the officiating in this football game was bad. Green Bay was flagged eight times for 81 yards to Detroit’s five for 50, per the box score, and two of those were roughing the passer calls, the Packers’ seventh and eighth in seven games this season.

Head coach Matt LaFleur was no happier about the sequence. “There was no whistle blown, and the guy continued to run, and our guy didn’t hear a whistle,” LaFleur said. Safety Xavier McKinney went after the officiating in the same locker room. Wyatt is the only one of them who was defending his own flag.