NFL referee Jerome Boger has defended his decision to penalize the Atlanta Falcons in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, after fans labeled his choice to flag Grady Jarrett’s sack on Tom Brady ‘the worst call ever’.
Jarrett, a two-time Pro Bowl defensive end, was sanctioned for roughing the passer with three minutes and three seconds left on the clock, after what many observed to be a legal sack late in the fourth quarter of Atlanta’s 21-15 loss to Tampa .
The 6-foot, 305-pound Jarrett wrapped up Brady from behind on third down and spun him to the ground — a tackle similar in style to the one that injured Miami Dolphins Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, but not nearly as violent.
‘What I had was the defender grabbed the quarterback while he was still in the pocket and unnecessarily threw him to the ground,’ Boger said in a postgame report. ‘That is what I was making my decision based on.’
Referee Jerome Boger backed his verdict to penalize Falcons for a Q4 roughing the passer call
Boger, who’s worked as an NFL referee since 2004, flagged Grady Jarrett’s sack on Tom Brady
The league’s third-ever black referee to have officiated in the NFL since 2004 added that he was ‘not necessarily’ instructed to pay close attention to quarterback sacks following Tagovailoa’s concussion earlier this season.
Brady disregarded questions about the call, telling reporters postgame: ‘I don’t throw flags,’ while Jarrett declined to comment after the game, but his actions exposed his frustration.
He slammed a garbage can and beverage cooler while repeating an expletive several times in the tunnel and hallway on the way to the locker room. He said he’d discuss the call on his Tuesday radio show.
Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles didn’t think Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion, was getting special treatment on the play. But he thought the fallout from Tagovailoa’s concussion — suffered amid a series of events that prompted changes this week to the league’s concussion protocol — may have influenced the call.
‘I saw that one being called. I saw it against Tua. I saw it in the London game this morning,’ Bowles said. ‘I think they are starting to crack down on some of the things like slinging quarterbacks. Right now, the way they are calling it, I think a lot of people would have gotten that call.’
“League safety is at an all-time high, as it should be,” he added. ‘Anything close, which we understand is going into the ball game, they’re going to call it.’
Tom Brady threw for 351 yards and a touchdown in the 21-15 win over the Falcons on Sunday
Several Falcons fans blasted Boger’s call, with some of them labeling it as a fireable offense
The Falcons saw it differently.
‘From my vantage point it looked like it was a bad call, but that’s why you put the refs out there to make these calls,’ defensive back Casey Hayward Jr. said. ‘They pay these guys to make those calls. It looked bad from my point of view, but I was in the back end.’
Smith said he was ‘not going to get into that.’
Meanwhile, fans also took to social media to slam Brady after he appeared to kick Jarrett on multiple plays throughout Sunday’s game.
The most noticeable moment was right after Jarrett sacked Brady in the fourth quarter on roughing the passer play. Brady immediately kicked his legs up in the air after rolling to the ground while the Falcons’ defensive end got up.
Before that, Brady also seemed to have side-kicked Jarrett on a different play as both players were on the ground and got themselves in a tangle.
The 45-year-old QB was also accused of kicking Garrett on several occasions during the game
Former NFL safety Ryan Clark, who now works as an ESPN analyst, told the network’s ‘Get Up’ program that he is of the opinion that Brady intentionally provoked Jarrett with his kicking antics.
Mike Greenberg, a colleague of Clark’s at ESPN, agreed and even went as far as saying that Brady ‘deserved a penalty’.
‘Anyone else does that, they’re throwing a penalty to the guy on the ground,’ Greenberg added.
Sunday’s game went down to the wire, with the Buccs eventually coming out on top. The win brought Brady and Tampa to a 3-2 record on the season, while Atlanta fell to 2-3.
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