Patrick Mahomes drew some ire from fans in the Kansas City Chiefs‘ divisional round victory over the Houston Texans, benefiting from a pair of questionable penalties while also embellishing a hit from a defender on a separate play.
Tom Brady seemingly wasn’t a fan of the penalty calls, either. In an interview on “The Herd,” Brady said that the onus should fall on the quarterback to protect himself when he has the ball outside of the pocket.
Tom Brady discusses officiating and the Chiefs
“When quarterbacks become running backs and they’re out of the pocket, they should lose their protection,” Brady said. “We’re trying to protect the quarterbacks, but coaches are calling more quarterback runs than ever in the history of the game. So, who is protecting the quarterback? We’re trying to say the referees should do it?”
The first penalty the Texans were given for a hit on Mahomes was a roughing the passer call against Will Anderson Jr., who tackled the Chiefs quarterback up high after he threw a pass. The other penalty applied to more of what Brady said. In the third quarter, Texans linebacker Henry To’oTo’o hit Mahomes at the same time he began to go down on a running play.
In the fourth quarter, To’oTo’o pushed Mahomes as he was running along the sideline. The Chiefs quarterback seemed to exaggerate the contact, likely in the hope of garnering another unnecessary roughness. No penalty was called on the play, though.
Brady continued his defense of defensive players, saying they should be allowed to hit with force when a quarterback runs with the ball down the field.
“The reality for me is offensive players need to protect themselves,” Brady said. “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. 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.”
Brady offered a similar take earlier in the season when Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence was on the receiving end of an illegal hit by Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, saying that quarterbacks should be penalized for sliding late in some instances.
Any issues with how the Chiefs are officiated?
While Brady didn’t directly call out Mahomes, he is asking offensive players to be willing to take hits if they’re running with the ball and the league to possibly make some rule changes.
“If you don’t wanna get hit, you can go down, you can run out of bounds,” Brady said. “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. 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.”
Mahomes also took some ownership for the play where he embellished a hit.
“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.”
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