Chuba Hubbard carried the ball on a snap that never counted Sunday, and afterward he chose his words carefully.

The Carolina Panthers running back finished with 16 carries for 79 yards in a 26-21 loss to the Denver Broncos at Bank of America Stadium, a game that swung when replay turned a goal-line incompletion into an interception after the Panthers had already run their next play.

Hubbard pointed to that extra play when he spoke after the game, but he stopped short of going after the officials. However, the reason he gave for holding back drew reactions from fans, who turned their anger on the referees and the league.

Fans React to Panthers RB Chuba Hubbard’s Complaint

The Panthers had climbed out of a 10-0 hole and driven 87 yards from their own 12 to first-and-goal at the Broncos’ 1-yard line, holding a 14-13 lead late in the third quarter. Bryce Young threw for tight end Tommy Tremble near the back of the end zone, and Broncos linebacker Justin Strnad ran into Tremble just as the pass got there. The pass deflected off Tremble, and Broncos safety Devon Key grabbed it just before it hit the turf.

Officials, though, ruled the pass incomplete. The Panthers hurried to the line and handed off to Hubbard, who was stopped for no gain. Only then did referee Alan Eck announce that Broncos coach Sean Payton had thrown his challenge flag before that snap, and the review turned the incompletion into Key’s interception.

In a postgame clip posted by Chase Justice of WYFF News 4, Hubbard went back to that second-down snap: “The fact that we got another play off and ran it, I’m not trying to get fined, so I’m just going to keep my words to myself.”

Tremble, the target on the intercepted pass, raised the same sequence. “I didn’t know after we ran another play that they could go back for it.”

Fans were far less guarded than Hubbard, and one of them answered directly: “The fact they can get fined is so crazy.”

Another fan took that frustration further and aimed it squarely at the officials, writing, “No one can criticize these stupid cheating refs without being fined and they are never held accountable.”

The fix, as another fan saw it, was to turn the system around. “The NFL should start fining the refs for blatant bad calls.”

Young was as guarded as Hubbard in his assessment of the contact between Strnad and Tremble on the interception. “Yeah, no need to get into the refs. Not my job as a player.”

The league’s explanation came from Mark Butterworth, the NFL’s vice president of instant replay, in a pool report. “Replay can get involved to make sure that the head coach throws his challenge flag prior to the next snap. We were actually able to use angles to show that the flag was out prior to the ball being snapped, and so we permitted the challenge.”

After the interception, the Broncos took over at their own 20 and went 80 yards in 14 plays, taking a 19-14 lead on rookie Jonah Coleman’s 9-yard touchdown run before a failed two-point try. Their next touchdown, Bo Nix’s 26-yard pass to Pat Bryant, made it 26-14.

Carolina pulled within 26-21 late, but the 14-13 lead it carried into that goal-line sequence was the last one it held.