New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan on Monday morning and it's clear that he's fed up with the offensive pass interference calls going against tight end Rob Gronkowski.
"Have you been able to figure out what an offensive pass interference is for player like Gronkowski?," the hosts asked. "I don't know what Gronkowski is supposed to do in that situation right there."
"And there were two of them like that, there was not just the one," Brady pointed out. "There was another one where there were offsetting penalties. I don't know either. I know coach Belichick has spoken to the league about it and they're making a concerted effort to officiate the game."
"What does an official tell you in that situation?"
"They just feel like there's a push off. It's obviously different than what I saw, because I'm looking at it too, but they're the ones with the flags and they throw it. You hate to see it come down to stuff like that, but there were a lot of plays last night that just didn't necessarily end up the way we would have hoped and there were a lot of things that we could have done better.
"We're certainly not going to sit here and blame the officiating."
"...There's really nothing Rob can do about that..."
"Yeah, there's nothing he can do. The alternative is just to run down the field and make no contact, but let them contact you, and then they can obviously contact you within five yards of the line of scrimmage, but if you're on offense you can't contact anyone within five yards of the line of scrimmage. I don't fully understand it...it doesn't look like [Gronkowski's] doing a lot of pushing."
It's clear that the Patriots are ticked off with these ridiculous penalty flags that are only thrown against Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. Radio host Scott Zolak noted that the league has singled out Gronkowski to the officials for this rule, which is different than the league highlighting a specific rule. If the league is really targeting Gronkowski for such terrible calls, the NFL needs to change their approach.
"I don't think I've ever been so pissed off after a loss," Brady said. "And I think everyone else felt the same way."
Brady was clearly ticked off at the officiating throughout the whole interview and you can listen here. Brady points out missed holding calls by the defense in coverage of Brandon LaFell, the way the officials handled the Broncos injury at the end of the game and how they misrepresented the clock situation (they said "time out on the field for an injured player"), the missed defensive contact to Brady's head, and a few others.
The poor officiating against the Patriots has certainly stretched across the season, including the bizarre inadvertent whistle last week against the Bills. This has to change because the product has been terrible.
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