Tom Brady benefitted from a questionable call Sunday.
Late in the fourth quarter of the Buccaneers’ win over the Falcons, while leading 21-15, Tampa Bay was faced with a third-and-5 from Atlanta’s 47-yard line. With a stop, the Falcons could have gotten the ball back with a chance to win the game.
Grady Jarrett, the Falcons’ defensive end who sacked Brady three times in Super Bowl 51 and would have been an MVP candidate if not for the Patriots’ miraculous comeback, got to Brady on third down and dropped him for a loss of 10 yards.
The only problem? There was some laundry on the field. The referees called roughing the passer on Jarrett, giving the Buccaneers an automatic first down. Tampa Bay was able to run out the rest of the clock and hold on for the win at home.
“What I had was the defender grabbed the quarterback while he was still in the pocket and unnecessarily throwing him to the ground,” referee Jerome Boger said in a postgame pool report. “That is what I was making my decision based on.”
The penalty call baffled Fox commentator Daryl Johnson and infuriated Falcons head coach Arthur Smith. Twitter lit up with a number of NFL analysts baffled by the call.
“The roughing call they just gave to Brady might be the most embarrassingly bad NFL call in five years,” ESPN’s Mike Greenberg tweeted. “And there is zero chance they call it for any other quarterback.”
Added former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Robert Griffin III: “The Falcons got ROBBED. Hitting the QB hard does not equal Roughing the Passer even if it’s Tom Brady.”
The NFL changed the roughing-the-passer rule before the 2018 season. The rule was changed to prohibit defenders from landing on top of the quarterback and created a lot of controversy in the year it debuted.
Grady Jarrett hits Tom Brady during the fourth quarter of the Falcons’ loss to the Buccaneers. Getty Images
Grady Jarrett’s hit was flagged for roughing the passer. Getty ImagesThe NFL slightly changed the rule again before this season, making incidental contact with the arms to a quarterback’s head and neck area while attempting to block a pass no longer a penalty, and not penalizing defenders who unintentionally hit a player’s head and neck or lower legs.
Jarrett seemed to be following the rule but was penalized nonetheless.
The Buccaneers improve to 3-2 with the win and will travel to Pittsburgh next week, a team Brady has dominated in his career. Atlanta drops to 2-3 and will play the 49ers next week.
