ALLEN PARK — So the NFL issued a statement on Wednesday admitting that they gave the 49ers a 5-yard advantage on Sunday’s game-winning drive with a bad spot of the ball.

Here’s the statement: “The officiating crew incorrectly spotted the ball at the Detroit 35 instead of the 40 where Ted Ginn went out of bounds.’’

Five yards is a lot, but Lions coach Jim Schwartz isn’t using it as an excuse.

“It’s an unfortunate thing. They do their very best obviously sometimes things happen. The thing that made that difficult on that play there was also another situation we were talking to the officials about on that play, it went unnoticed coming out of that time-out,’’ Schwartz said.

He was talking about an illegal block on Maurice Stovall that was not called.

“I don’t think (five yards) affected the outcome of the game. We were still fourth-and-5 with a chance to stop them and grind out most of the rest of the clock and have a chance to finish the game,’’ Schwartz said. “We didn’t get that done. ...’’

When asked if he had somebody to watch the spots, he had a two-word reply: The officials.

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