To say the non-call had no effect on the game is likely right, but...to say that play had no outcome on the game is flat out wrong.
Just wrong.
And it was NOT a clean hit, it should have been a penalty. That is CLEAR and cannot be refuted from the video record. You CANNOT hit a defender more than five yards down the field before the ball touches an offensive player.
You just cannot. You can say it was not an intentionally dirty play (which I don’t think it was either) but you CANNOT say it was a clean hit. If the ball has not reached the offensive target, and the defender can clearly see that and is making a line for the target and gets hit before the ball arrives, that is NOT a clean hit.
THAT is cut and dried, a penalty.
So the penalty would have been for an illegal pick. Not for unnecessary roughness. Not for a shot to the head. Not for anything dirty. It was a CLEAN hit. It was timed 2 tenths of a second early... but that doesn’t make it a dirty hit. It makes it an illegal pick. A clean hit during an illegal pick. To say it wasn’t a clean hit, means you do not know what a clean hit is.