Tom Brady is finally giving his thoughts on the officiating calls regarding the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Brady Sounds Off
Brady, 47, believes that it should be up to the quarterback to protect himself, not the refs. And after all his years as a quarterback for the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brady knows a thing or two about quarterbacking and getting rocked.
“When quarterbacks become running backs, and they’re out of the pocket, they should lose their protection,” Brady told FOX Sports’ The Herd.
Music to our ever-loving ears, Tom.
“We’re trying to protect the quarterbacks, but coaches are calling more quarterback runs than ever in the history of the game,” he continued. “So, who is protecting the quarterback? We’re trying to say the referees should do it?”
Last Saturday, the Chiefs Chiefs defeated the Houston Texans Chiefs’ 23-14. During that game, Mahomes was the beneficiary of two questionable calls. Later, he would flop around like LeBron James looking for another call – which just goes to show the consequences of too much protection for the QB.
Brady appears to be referring to the call that came in the third quarter, when Mahomes was scrambling. As he slid with the ball in his hand, he was downed by two Texans defenders. Afterwards, Texans linebacker Henry To’oTo’o was flagged by officials for unnecessary roughness.
Brady Doubles Down
Not stopping there, Brady went on to defend defensive players. Indeed, he thinks that when a quarterback is running down the field with a ball, they should be allowed to hit the quarterback with force.
“The reality for me is offensive players need to protect themselves,” Brady explained. “If they’re running full speed and the defender’s coming up — the only way to turn the ball over is to create force. You’re not going to blow on the football and knock its way out of a running back’s hands or a quarterback’s hands.
“You’ve gotta go there with force and knock it out,” he added. “You’re trying to create turnovers. You’re trying to disrupt the passer. You’re trying to dislodge the ball. The only way to do that is with force. There needs to be an aggressiveness to doing that.”
The man obviously knows what he’s talking about. He played in the NFL from 2000-2022, and while this was the era of the “skirt rules,” the skirts were a little shorter in his early career.
Just look at how different the game was:
Brady Sends Message To Offensive Players
Brady never referenced Mahomes specifically by name. Instead, he addressed offensive players in general.
“If you don’t wanna get hit, you can go down, you can run out of bounds,” Brady stated. “But you can’t, in essence, have the defensive player come in at half speed and then you run over the defensive player because he’s afraid of getting a penalty.”
“It’s a disservice to the game,” he concluded. “It’s something that I’d hope people really address. Not that anyone’s trying to take advantage of the rules, but they’ve gone to a point where it does impact the quality of the game.”
As for Mahomes, he’s taking responsibility for his side of this.
“I would say the only one I felt like I probably did too much was the one on the sideline where I didn’t get the flag,” Mahomes told 96.5 The Fan. “The refs saw it and it didn’t get a flag. I understood it immediately and know that I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
Only time will tell if Mahomes takes what Brady had to say to heart in the future!
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