49ers LB Dre Greenlaw Flagged For Punching Football

The San Francisco 49ers suffered yet another bout of extraordinarily bad luck during the 2022 NFC Championship Game. They lost Brock Purdy on the first drive of the game to an elbow injury and were forced to turn to Josh Johnson for less than two quarters before he got hurt and Purdy had to go back in. While the offense was in disarray the Philadelphia Eagles took advantage and went up several touchdowns.

By the halfway point of the fourth quarter the game was pretty much in hand. Philly had the ball and was running the clock out when Niners LB Dre Greenlaw got flagged for trying to punch the football out of running back Kenneth Gainwell's hands. Which is not illegal on its own. It appears Greenlaw got flagged because he punched three times, and punched pretty hard, too.

I have seen many, many players do just that and never gotten flagged. But this game has been extremely weird for all sorts of reasons so why not throw a bizarre penalty in there, too?