Matthew Stafford was lying face down on the ground with Melvin Ingram's left leg draped on his back when Kyle Emanuel made the diving interception that turned out to be the play of the game.
At first glance, a miscommunication by the Detroit Lions' revamped offensive line appeared to be to blame for a turnover that swung momentum back the Chargers' way and helped San Diego finish off a rally from 18 points down to beat the Lions in the season-opener for both teams, 33-28.
Right tackle Cornelius Lucas and right guard Manny Ramirez both blocked the same pass rusher, defensive tackle Corey Liuget, leaving Ingram to blitz free off the edge and hit Matthew Stafford hard enough to earn him assault charges in 38 states.
But Lucas and Ramirez said there was no miscommunication on the play and that the Lions were simply outmaneuvered in one of Sunday's most pivotal moments.
"To the naked eye you wouldn't understand our calls, so a person who's looking at the game, it would look like that," Lucas said. "But it goes deeper than that.
"We were practicing a look all week that we thought they were going to do and they actually, the quarterback put us in a protection that we thought was going to work against that look and they actually faked that look and went to another."
Stafford raised his leg in a dummy call for the snap, and when safety Eric Weddle joined Te'o, Butler, outside linebackers Ingram and Emanuel, and defensive linemen Liuget and Ricardo Mathews at the line of scrimmage, the Lions' quarterback walked forward to his offensive line and barked out a new protection call.
The Lions had three receivers in a trips formation to the right, Lance Moore, Corey Fuller and Eric Ebron, and Calvin Johnson split wide left matched up one-on-one with cornerback Brandon Flowers.
Johnson had just four passes thrown his way all game, but Stafford's read dictated this throw would go Johnson's way.
"(They showed) a certain pressure that they run every once in a while when they have a certain personnel out there," Ramirez explained. "And they brought it up like they were going to run it, we made our call. They basically either checked out of it or they were bluffing it and they got us."
As Stafford took the snap from center Travis Swanson, he zeroed in on Johnson running a hitch-and-go route down the Lions sideline.
But the inside blitz the Lions were expecting never came.
Weddle dropped into underneath coverage on Johnson's side of the formation a second after Stafford raised his leg a second time to signal the snap. Both Te'o and Butler dropped into coverage, leaving the Chargers with a four-man rush.
Joique Bell, the running back in the formation, tried to cut-block a blitzing Emanuel off the left side of scrimmage. Left tackle Riley Reiff stood up Mathews without much push. Swanson and left guard Laken Tomlinson were left without rushers, and Lucas stonewalled Liuget with help from Ramirez.
Ingram, the one unaccounted for rusher, had a clear path to Stafford and smashed into his throwing elbow before Stafford knew he was there.
Ramirez said the Lions "went by our rules" in blocking the look the Chargers showed pre-snap, and Lucas said the only thing the line could have done to prevent the sack was "we could have stayed in the previous protection, but sometimes things happen."
"You try to catch the defense with certain plays, try to catch them off guard, and they caught us," Ramirez said. "Instead of us catching them, they caught us. They bluffed it pretty well, we made our call, we ran with it what we practiced. It happens all the time, we just move on to the next play."
That play didn't lose the game for the Lions Stephen Tulloch recovered a Melvin Gordon fumble three plays later but the Lions didn't the look same after it.
Stafford threw his second interception on the Lions' next series and played the rest of the game with a sleeve on his right arm, trying to keep the appendage loose.
He wore a bulky wrap on his arm Monday, still feeling the effects from the hit, but said he expects to play this week against the Minnesota Vikings.
"It was a tough one," Stafford said of the hit in his weekly team-sponsored interview Monday night on Fox2. "He got me good, kind of right on the triceps/elbow area, but I'll be good to go (this week against the Minnesota Vikings). I started feeling better towards the end of the game and I'll be good to go."