The two officials near the play conferred and then simultaneously made separate signals side judge Lance Easley raised his arms to signal touchdown, while back judge Derrick Rhone-Dunn waved his arms to signal stoppage of the clock.

Tate, laying beneath Jennings, still had a hand on the ball, with his arms wrapped around Jennings. Jennings visibly controlled the ball, with both arms wrapped around it, upon landing on the ground. Jennings had two hands on the ball and Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate had one hand on the ball. Several Packers and Seahawks leaped to catch the ball. On the final play of the game, Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson threw a Hail Mary pass into the Packers end zone.

With eight seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Seahawks had possession of the ball at the Packers' 24-yard line with a fourth down-and-10 situation. Prior to the play, the Packers were leading the Seahawks 12–7. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell acknowledged that the negative attention the game drew to the referee situation was an impetus for ending the labor dispute. Two days after the game, the NFL and the NFL Referees Association announced that they had reached an agreement to end the lockout. The controversial ending followed weeks of criticism regarding the quality of officiating by replacement officials employed by the NFL during the 2012 NFL referee lockout. The NFL subsequently released a statement defending the touchdown ruling, while admitting that offensive pass interference did occur, which would have resulted in a Packers win. The lack of a pass interference penalty and the ruling of a touchdown via simultaneous catch were widely questioned in the aftermath of the game, drawing comments from the game's announcers, NFL players, and the media. Prior to the catch, Tate shoved Packers cornerback Sam Shields with both hands, which the NFL later acknowledged should have drawn an offensive pass interference penalty that would have negated the touchdown and resulted in a Packers victory. The two officials near the play initially gave separate signals of touchdown and touchback, before ruling the players had simultaneous possession, resulting in a Seahawks game-winning touchdown. Jennings got their hands on the ball while both players were still in the air and attempting to gain possession.

On the final play of the tightly-contested game, Seattle rookie quarterback Russell Wilson threw a Hail Mary pass into the end zone intended for wide receiver Golden Tate. In a nationally televised game on ESPN's Monday Night Football, the Seahawks defeated the Packers, 14–12, in controversial fashion. The Fail Mary, sometimes known as the Inaccurate Reception or the Intertouchdownception, was the final play of an American football game between the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL) that occurred on September 24, 2012, at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, Washington. Mike Tirico, Jon Gruden, and Lisa Salters A screenshot of the ESPN broadcast taken during the play that resulted in the officiating controversy.

Hail mary football sept 19