Official Jerome Boger was forced to justify a penalty awarded to an Atlanta Falcons lineman who tackled Tom Brady.
He said on the fourth quarter footage that Grady Jarrett “unnecessarily” threw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback to the ground.
The game was important, as the Falcons were now losing by six points with 3 minutes left. Atlanta seemed to have held the Bucs back with that sack on third down, but the penalty allowed the Bucs to continue the streak and run out the seconds on the clock to win 21-15.
On the sequence, we see Jarrett surround Brady and roll with him on the ground.
“What I have is a defensive player who grabs the quarterback while he’s in his pocket and unnecessarily puts him down,” Boger said. That’s what I made my decision on. »
Jarrett declined to speak to the media following the encounter. Falcons coach Arthur Smith also declined to comment. A Brady teammate, guard Tristan Wirfs made a joke of his quarterback’s age.
“I think Tom being who he is, he’ll get that kind of call more often than not,” Wirfs said of the 45-year-old quarterback.
Head coach Todd Bowles says the play is increasingly seen as a penalty since what happened to Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
“I saw this play being a penalty, I saw it since Tua was hit. It was at the London matinee game,” Bowles said of the game between the Packers and the Giants.
For Falcons linebacker Lorenzo Carter, he doesn’t understand that a handkerchief was thrown at this play. “It seemed like football to me. We just play aggressively,” he argued.