SANTA CLARA — The 49ers were leading 20-3 midway through the third quarter on Sunday, and the Jacksonville Jaguars appeared to be unraveling.
Four eligible receivers apparently were lined up on the wrong side of the formation and had to switch places as the play clock reached 10 seconds.
Linebacker Fred Warner, who was not mic'd up, can be clearly heard on the FOX broadcast saying, “Hey, they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Then, the voice of presumably a Jaguars offensive lineman becomes audible, “You’re right, we don’t.”
The 49ers would go on to force a turnover on that drive, when cornerback Ambry Thomas stripped Christian Kirk of the ball. And the Jaguars’ next possession ended with Warner’s interception of Trevor Lawrence.
On Wednesday, Warner was asked about the particular sequence that unfolded for all viewers to hear for themselves.
San Francisco 49ers
“I think they must’ve AI generated that or something,” Warner said, laughing. “There’s no way I said that.”
But Warner immediately revealed it all unfolded exactly how it appeared on TV.
“Sometimes you’re in a game where things are going your way and time is moving a little slower so they’re jumbled up in their formation in the back end and I’m trying to get in their ear and talk about them not knowing what they’re doing. I think it was one of the offensive linemen who said, ‘We don’t know what we’re doing.’
“Just good fun out there.”
Warner said he definitely felt as if the Jaguars were confused on the play in question, as well as some other points in the game.
“Early on, they had a check where they were supposed to get into a screen look when we had a zero (blitz) look and they wanted to get to a screen,” Warner said. “The guy didn’t run a screen. So maybe little things coming out of the bye they weren’t as sharp as they had been in the past five weeks.”
The 49ers snapped a three-game skid, while the Jaguars' five-game winning streak came to an end with San Francisco's 34-3 victory in Week 10.
Warner said he definitely knew which way the game was trending when he heard the Jaguars player agree with his harsh observation of them not knowing what they were doing.
“Yes,” Warner said, “and I was like, ‘I got them.' "