Tom Brady has given his verdict on the controversial holding call that came in the last minutes of Super Bowl LVII, and he’s not a huge fan of it. It’s hard to swallow a flag potentially robbing the Philadelphia Eagles of a chance to tie the game, but that could be what happened.
Brady discussed the penalty on the “Let’s Go!” podcast:
“It’s always, I think, easier not to call it. The hard one is when you do call it because there’s a lot of scrutiny with that call.”
“And I think the point is, at least from a receiver DB standpoint, you know, if you’re not going to come from, you know, let’s say within the letter of the law, and you’re going to tug it on, you can impede the receiver from where he wants to go and create an almost impossible throwing catch by the quarterback.”
He finished, saying:
“And at the same time on the other side of the ball. If the receiver pushes off, there’s really nothing that DB can do in order to make the play. So it’s such a hard situation because you don’t know how the game is being called all day long.”
Eagles cornerback James Bradberry admitted that he held Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster’s jersey. However, he had hoped the officials wouldn’t call it.
Brady seems to be in the same line of thinking that the refs might have considered swallowing the whistle. Nevertheless, it was a penalty.
What penalty is Tom Brady referring to?
Tom Brady was referring to the controversial holding call in the final two minutes of the Super Bowl. Due to the call, the Chiefs received a fresh set of downs and whittled the clock away.
It was a third down near the red zone and the Eagles had one timeout remaining. Patrick Mahomes tossed a pass towards the end zone for Smith-Schuster, who was running a wheel route.
Bradberry had held him at the beginning of his route, which may have prevented him from getting to the ball. The penalty was called, which made it first down. The Chiefs ran the clock out and kicked the field goal to win the Super Bowl.