Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady took one on the chin physically and metaphorically in the Bucs’ January 23 NFC Divisional playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
Brady, who got a bloody lip on the play, thought Rams edge rusher Von Miller should’ve been called for roughing the passer. He protested the officials’ no-call and wound up with his first penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct in his 22 years in the league.
Tom Brady gets hit in the chin by Von Miller #NoCall but Brady gets flagged for yelling at the ref after t.co/tXRVytasbz
After the game, referee Shawn Hochuli explained the decision via a pool report, according to The Athletic’s Greg Auman.
“He got in my face in an aggressive manner and used abusive language. As for the hit, we did not think that it rose to the level of roughing the passer,” Hochuli said, per Auman.
Referee Shawn Hochuli via pool report on the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Bucs QB Tom Brady in today’s game: “He got in my face in an aggressive manner and used abusive language. As for the hit, we did not think that it rose to the level of roughing the passer.”
Brady was not asked about the incident during his postgame press conference.
On the January 18 episode of his podcast, “Let’s Go!,” he admitted that refs “let me get away with” things that could be considered violations.
“I do know that [the officials] probably let me get away with a lot of unsportsmanlike conducts, talking smack to the other team and talking smack to the refs when I don’t think I get the right call,” Brady told host Jim Gray. “I’m kind of a pain in their a**, if you don’t already know that.”
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Costly Drive Beyond Penalty
Brady bounced back from the 15-yard penalty with a 19-yard pass to running back Leonard Fournette for a first down with 10:25 to go in the second quarter.
Trailing 17-3 on the Rams’ 27-yard line, the Bucs appeared poised to cut Los Angeles’ lead to a touchdown. Instead, Brady went cold. He completed a short pass to Fournette followed by two incompletions to Tyler Johnson and Giovani Bernard. Bucs kicker Ryan Succop then missed a 48-yard field goal wide to the right.
After two more scoring drives, the Rams’ lead ballooned to 27-3, necessitating a furious second-half comeback by Brady and the Bucs.
“It’s the reality of football,” Brady told reporters after the game. “Every team is really qualified when you get to the final eight, then the final four, then the final two, and it doesn’t feel good to lose any one of those games, and I have lost each of those stages.
“So at the end, there is only one team that’s going to be happy. It feels good to move on when you move on, and obviously when you don’t — whether it was last week or this week or next week, or the week after, two weeks after that — if you are a loser in that game, it all sucks to lose in the end.”
Brady Couldn’t Match Super Bowl Comeback
Being down 27-3 was only a point shy of the biggest postseason deficit Brady had ever overcome. He led the New England Patriots back from 28-3 against the Atlanta Falcons in the 2017 Super Bowl.
“[Today] was a great comeback,” Brady told reporters when asked whether he’d thought about that Super Bowl when the Bucs trailed the Rams 27-3. “Obviously, it took a lot. Guys made a lot of great plays to get us back into it, and you don’t have a lot of margin for error at that point, and then, defense kept coming up big.
“There were not a ton of healthy bodies, but we found a way to get the ball in the end zone there in the end against a really good defense,” Brady added. “It’s tough to lose a game when it comes down to the end like that.”
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Bucs-Rams Referee Breaks Silence on Tom Brady Penalty