The roughing-the-passer penalty called when Tom Brady was sacked during Sunday’s game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons caused an uproar in the NFL community. When watching the play, some fans pointed out that Brady attempted to kick Falcons player Grady Jarrett after being sacked by him. This has led to the NFL looking into the play, and according to ESPN, Brady has been fined $11,139 for attempting to kick Jarrett on a sack in the Buccaneers’ 21-15 victory over the Falcons.
The NFL informed Brady of the fine on Friday. This isn’t the first time Brady has been fined for the offense as he attempted to kick former Baltimore Ravens star Ed Reed in 2013 and was fined $10,000. Earlier this week, Jarrett appeared on the radio station 680 The Fan in Atlanta, and while he didn’t talk about the kick, he revealed that he was surprised to be penalized for roughing the passes since he believes he did everything right.
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“Just looking back on it, I’m still kind of left clueless,” Jarrett said, per ESPN. “On what I’m expected to do in that situation.” Had Jarrett not been flagged, the Falcons would have gotten the ball back and had to chance to beat Brady for the first time. But the penalty helped the Buccaneers hold on to the ball and secure the win.
While speaking to reporters this week, Brady was asked about the controversial penalty. “No one wants any missed calls,” Brady said, per 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.”
Brady continued: “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.”
