The Detroit Lions came out sharp to open Thursday night against the Cowboys, but it didn’t take long for the first bit of controversy to show up. In the first quarter, the Lions sacked Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in the end zone. And what happened next was pretty interesting.

Jack Campbell came clean on a blitz, wrapped Prescott up, and drove him backward. The call on the field was a safety, giving the Lions a 5–3 lead. Simple enough. And since every scoring play gets an automatic review, it looked like the kind of ruling that would stand unless something obvious appeared on replay.

But that “something obvious” eventually did.

For a safety, any part of the ball must be across the goal line and into the end zone when the quarterback is ruled down. If the nose of the ball is still outside the end zone at that moment, it’s not a safety. At first glance, it looked like Prescott was fully swallowed up. But after several minutes of review, the officials overturned the call. The ball, they said, was just barely outside the end zone.

Dallas punted on the next snap, and Detroit took over at the Cowboys’ 42 with 5:24 left in the quarter. But the decision had already changed the temperature of the building.

Amazon’s initial replays didn’t help much. Nothing showed the full ball clearly outside the goal line. Even Prime Video rules analyst Terry McAulay said he thought it was a safety. But coming out of the commercial break, the broadcast brought out a different angle, shot straight down the line. On that view, the ball looked like it might be out by inches.

McAulay came back on the air and agreed with the league’s judgment.

“It does appear from this straight down the line that the entire ball is out of the end zone on this one, so given this angle, they did get it correct,” he said.

That won’t soothe Lions fans, who spent the next few minutes lighting up social media. Whether the call was technically right or not, Detroit supporters felt like two points had been yanked away on a razor-thin margin.

Lions fans make their frustrations known

Primetime games rarely move along without some kind of flare-up, and Thursday night in Detroit didn’t break tradition. Lions fans made it clear almost immediately: this was going to be one of those calls that live on X for a while.

“They claimed the ball was out of the end zone. The refs are so dumb, you tap the ball on any white, and it’s a touchdown. Yet the entire ball has to be on the end zone for a safety. Yet another rule to benefit the offense,” one fan wrote.

Others pointed out recent history, insisting this wasn’t the first Cowboys ruling they’ve questioned in the past few weeks.

“Last 3 weeks, the refs are gifting the Cowboys calls. Fraudulent team,” he wrote.

To be fair, Dallas has been on the wrong side of a few borderline decisions too: a roughing-the-punter flag against Philadelphia drew its own share of debate after replays showed a tipped ball. This may simply be another example of inconsistent officiating, not a Cowboys conspiracy. Still, that didn’t stop another fan from going full tinfoil-hat.

“The @NFL is desperately trying to keep the Cowboys in the postseason picture…there is no other answer for that…A ridiculously awful booth call 😡,” he wrote.

And someone else took it a step further.

“Does officiating need a surprise drug test?”

It’s just one of those calls. Cowboys fans will say the replay center got it right. Lions fans will stew about the two points that vanished. And everyone else will be talking about this one for a while.