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49ers head coach Mike Singletary indicated that the NFL should consider instituting a rule requiring officials to visit the sidelines, as well.

Mike Martz left the 49ers' latest defeat Monday night wondering why the heck they couldn't punch the ball in from the 1-yard line.

It wasn't until Tuesday morning that Martz discovered they weren't on the 1-yard line; they were closer to the 3.

Martz found out from Mike Nolan. The recently fired coach noticed while watching television that the 49ers were caught off guard by the way the officials handled the chaotic final sequence.

"He knew immediately,'' Martz said. "He's the only one who really knows football well enough to know exactly what happened."

That phrase — exactly what happened — took almost all of Tuesday to sort out. The 49ers conceded they bungled the final minute of their 29-24 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, with offensive coordinator Martz and Coach Mike Singletary issuing mea culpas for their baffling clock management.

But each coach also expressed frustration with the officiating crew, saying the referee failed to adequately explain where the ball would be placed before the fateful final play.

A run by Frank Gore with 20 seconds left set the stage for the final scene: Gore had stumbled going around left end and hit the turf before reaching the end zone on second-and-goal from the 1.


During a replay review, the 49ers thought officials were checking to see whether Gore had crossed the goal line. At worst, Martz thought, the 49ers would have the ball at about the 1. So he ordered a fullback dive by Michael Robinson.

In fact, officials were reviewing whether Gore was down by contact. They ultimately ruled that Cardinals defensive lineman Chike Okeafor had touched him down at the 2﻿1/2-yard line and put four seconds on the clock.

Officials made that announcement over the public-address system, but both Martz and Singletary swear there are times it is impossible to hear such announcements while standing on the field.

That's why officials tend to hold separate conversations with coaches from both teams to clarify the situation.

Officials do so as a courtesy, not as a rule, but Martz said that in 17 years, he has never seen a crew skip that conversation before a crucial situation.

"Why they didn't do that this time, I don't know,'' he said.

Powerless to change the play call of a fullback dive, Robinson came up embarrassingly short.

"If they had moved the ball back to the 10-yard line, we couldn't have changed the play,'' Martz said. "It wouldn't have mattered. We had to run that play. "... We just kind of got caught as a victim."

Still, it was only third down. Why not spike the ball and set up a fourth-down play?

"I'm not sure we had the time to do that because of the motion away from the ball and the clock starting simultaneously,'' Singletary said. "It is not the correct protocol."

Randall Liu, an NFL spokesman, said via e-mail that referee Tony Corrente "followed the normal procedures" in his handling of the final play. Liu wrote that Corrente made the announcement, reset the ball at the line of scrimmage, reminded quarterback Shaun Hill that the clock would begin on his signal and made sure Hill had time to get under center before allowing play to resume.


"We have no clue what's going on,'' he said. "The referee stands out in the middle of the field and calls it, says whatever he's saying, but you can't hear it. "... To me, that is a major issue in this game."

The 49ers, meanwhile, knew they could also look in the mirror if they wanted someone to blame. They squandered 23 precious seconds after Jason Hill gave them a first-and-goal from the 1.

All they needed to do was spike the ball to stop the clock, but Martz created chaos by trying to rush his short-yardage personnel onto the field. He should have done that after the spike.

"That's just a bad job of coaching on my part,'' Martz said. "I knew what we wanted to do. I called out two different things at the same time. "... That's a 'Coach Martz screwed up' error."

  • Receiver Josh Morgan suffered the only significant injury during the game, Singletary said. Morgan suffered an apparent groin strain, and his status for Sunday's game against the St. Louis Rams is unknown. "We have to see how serious it is and nurse it along,'' Singletary said.

  • Contrary to earlier reports, Allen Rossum's opening kickoff return for a touchdown Monday was the sixth in 49ers history. Vic Washington did it twice in 1972, Abe Woodson did it in 1963, Carl Monroe in 1985 and Cedrick Wilson in 2003.

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