Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the beneficiary of a rather soft roughing the passer penalty this past Sunday. Atlanta Falcons defensive end Grady Jarrett sacked Brady late in the game but the penalty resulted in an automatic first down and a 21-15 Bucs win.
On Thursday, Brady was asked about the call and he took a rather diplomatic approach to the situation, admitting that referees are human and miss calls just like he sometimes misses throws.
“No one wants any missed calls,” Brady said (transcribed by Pro Football Talk). “There’s a lot of things I see that are probably pretty challenging to officiate, probably pretty challenging to play defense with, so I don’t have the answers to all those. I don’t think the referees are robots, I don’t think they’re trying to get it wrong, I don’t think they’re always gonna get it right. I feel bad for a guy when they get called something that probably shouldn’t be that way. Sometimes you’ve just got to shake it off. I’ve lost Super Bowls because I thought they missed a call. You’re going to get some, you’re going to not get some. You hope they don’t come up but they come up. It’s sports.”
“It’s just the way sports are. I miss throws, refs miss calls, we try to do the best we can do. When they don’t go your way you just complain to the refs, like I do.”
What Brady said isn’t wrong. He’s correct in that referees make mistakes like any other human being and that even though it may not look like it, they really are trying to get every call right.
My issue with what Brady said comes down to his campaigning to get those calls. His remark about complaining to the refs was meant to be a joke but he has at times lobbied to get those calls when it was a clean hit or tackle. No one is saying that Brady should go to the referee and make them rescind their call but it’s not like Brady, or anyone else, helps the situation when they try to get a call from the refs when they didn’t deserve that.
