There was a lot of contact on both sides and if the ball wasn’t thrown out of bounds maybe the ref has to call a penalty on someone, but he didn’t and the 49ers have to get over it.
They didn’t lose the Super Bowl on that one play, they lost it on several plays starting with the 1st penalty of the game that cost them a 1st down.
Smith for his part says he didn’t do anything wrong.
“He ran directly into me,” Smith said of Crabtree in an interview on ESPN 102.3 in Denver, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “I had inside leverage. He ran into me. So once he did that and tried to push off . . . I had to make contact. That was on him. He didn’t run a fade; he didn’t get away. He could have just ran and pivoted out or faded away from the ball, but he didn’t. He ran into me so he could make contact to push off to create separation, and I didn’t let that happen.”