Getty Tom Brady believes his unsportsmanlike penalty against the Rams was the wrong call.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady playing another NFL game remains uncertain, but calling it a penalty-free career is too late.
Brady voiced his opinion on his first and only unsportsmanlike conduct penalty during his weekly podcast “Let’s Go!” on Monday, January 24. Referee Shawn Hochuli threw a flag on Brady for yelling after a play where Los Angeles Rams linebacker hit Brady in the chin and bloodied his lip during the 30-27 playoff loss on Sunday. Hochuli claimed that Brady got “aggressive” and “used abusive language” per Greg Auman of The Athletic.
“If I feel like they miss a call, I want to let the guy know, and I’ve done that literally a thousand times over the course of my career and never got called,” Brady told podcast host Jim Gray regarding the incident. “In this instance, before I could realize it, the flag was thrown, and I was looking at the guy like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I didn’t cuss, I didn’t do any of those things.”
Tom Brady charges the official to complain about Von Miller’s late hit. 😤
He gets hit with the first unsportsmanlike conduct penalty of his career 😲
“I obviously felt like I got hit on the chin, and I felt like he missed, in the end, a clear penalty,” Bray added. “So I screamed at him to throw the flag, and he did. But I guess I need to be more specific with who he needs to throw the flag on. So I’ve got a nice bruise under my chin.”
Brady: ‘That Was Pretty Comical to Me’
Brady ironically talked about his relationship with NFL referees the week before on his Jan. 18 podcast because of claims that referees take it easy on him.
“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 Gray. “I’m kind of a pain in their a**, if you don’t already know that.”
Brady played in 318 regular season games and 46 playoff games in his career before ever drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Though Brady didn’t like the call in the end, but he took it with some humor afterward.
“It is the first time in 22 years to get flagged. That was pretty comical to me,” Brady told Gray on Monday.
Julian Edelman’s Perfect Reaction to Brady’s Bloody Lip
Brady’s bloody lip didn’t sway Hochuli after the play, but images of Brady’s battle scar became a social media hit on Sunday.
Tom Brady was visibly upset after taking a hit to the helmet, giving him a bloody lip.
He was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after this interaction with the referee.
Former teammate Julian Edelman chimed in with arguably one of the most befitting reactions to Brady’s bloody moment. Edelman tweeted a meme with the White Goodman’s quote “nobody makes me bleed my own blood” from “Dodgeball”.
“You don’t want to see a mad Tom Brady,” Edelman wrote.
You don’t want to see a mad @TomBrady
Well, the Rams certainly saw a resurgent Brady in the second half where he led a 24-point comeback to tie the game with 42 seconds remaining. He threw for 329 yards and a touchdown in what could be his final NFL game.
Brady talked about family as the prime consideration for whether to play or not in 2022 during Monday’s podcast. He included a comment about his wife, Gisele Bundchen, not being a fan of the hits he takes.
“It pains her to see me get hit out there,” Brady told Gray.
A shot to the chin and a bloody lip on Sunday didn’t help Brady on that front.