Tom Brady rips officiating in Lions-Packers over soft calls

Credit: FoxTom Brady got plenty of soft calls when he was under center for the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers during his playing days. Now that he’s in the booth though, he is getting pretty tired of them.During Sunday’s game between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions, Brady was on the call alongside Kevin Burkhardt, and could not hold back his frustration after several penalties raised his ire.In the fourth quarter with the Lions holding a 17–14 lead, linebacker Derrick Barnes got called for unnecessary roughness on a late hit.“What?” Brady asked incredulously after seeing the flag. “There’s no way.”Watching the replay, Brady doubled down on his criticism of the flag, noting that the defender can’t assume that a pass is going to be dropped.“That’s allowed 99 out of 100. It’s a bang-bang play. I know in super slow-mo every little minute frame looks like a lot, but when you’re on the field you’ve got to pursue that ball. If he catches that, he needs force to knock him on the ground. He needs force to knock that ball off him as a pass defense. He can’t go in there and put his hand on him.”Later in the quarter, another call got Brady especially riled up. With the game tied 17–17 and the Lions looking to drive for a game-winning field goal, quarterback Jared Goff stood tall in the pocket and took a big hit while delivering a ball to tight end Sam LaPorta for a healthy gain. The flag that Goff earned on the hit gave the Lions 15 yards on top of the play, and put them into field goal range.“No, my goodness. What is that?! There’s no way!” Brady said. “That’s definitely not roughing the passer! You’re just ripping through the line of scrimmage to try to get the quarterback on the ground. Look, I love Goff standing there in the pocket, but you can’t just keep tacking on 15 yards.”Fox rules analyst Dean Blandino agreed with Brady’s assessment, calling the play a “teach-tape tackle.”Fans watching the action at home were also strongly against the calls. Some praised Brady for calling out the officiating in the moment, while others saw a bit of hypocrisy in his criticism given the protection officials often afforded Brady against such hits over the course of his career.People blaming Brady as the source for these sorts of penalties are stretching things a bit, but only a bit. That said, of course Brady was going to milk every call he possibly could while playing. No NFL quarterback is going to eat a hit that could potentially give his team an extra 15 yards and pull the refs aside to tell them that no, this time, it was totally clean.Now that he’s in the booth, it’s is obviously better for Brady to call these flags as he sees them. Further, it feels like the anger Brady gets calling out these types of calls often leads to some of his best broadcasting moments.Officials are always going to make a few calls we don’t agree with. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen that often, but when it does, we want whoever is in Brady’s role to call it like he sees it.The post Tom Brady rips officiating in Lions-Packers over soft calls appeared first on Awful Announcing.